A New Jersey-based food importer has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, challenging the president's 50 percent tariffs on a wide range of Canadian goods, including cheese, according to court documents and reporting from Fox Business. The suit, filed Tuesday in the U.S. Court of International Trade in New York, argues that the administration lacks the legal authority to impose sweeping tariffs without congressional approval.
Gellert Global Group, a third-generation family business that has imported Canadian cheese for roughly a century, says the tariffs have already cost the company more than $520,000 in duties between September 16 and October 11, according to the complaint. The company estimates the tariffs could cost it $40 million annually.
The lawsuit targets President Trump's use of Section 338 of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, a Depression-era law that allows the president to impose tariffs of up to 50 percent on imports from countries found to discriminate against American businesses. The administration first imposed the 50 percent tariffs over the summer, accusing Canada of discriminating against American-made cars, alcohol, and dairy products. The measures were expanded in September to include additional products in response to Canadian retaliatory tariffs.
According to Al Jazeera, which cited Reuters, the lawsuit argues that the law does not apply to the Canadian policies the administration claims are discriminatory, because two of them "arose in response to the president's own tariffs, while the third involves Canadian dairy policy governed by the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA)."
"No president should have the power to pull a dormant statute off the shelf and use it to impose sweeping tariffs or import bans without the limits Congress required," said Sara Albrecht, chairman and CEO of the Liberty Justice Center, the nonprofit legal organization that filed the suit on Gellert's behalf.
S.) Constitution as it's written, and abusing the separation of powers, and basically taking authority that the executive branch doesn't have," she said.
The case is the latest legal challenge to the president's tariff policies, which have drawn scrutiny from courts and businesses alike. The Liberty Justice Center is asking the court to declare the tariffs unlawful and order a refund with interest.
A Trump administration official told The Canadian Press on background that the president's actions will be vigorously defended in court. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters.
Gellert says the tariffs disrupt longstanding relationships with suppliers on both sides of the border. "These tariffs disrupt those relationships overnight and create costs and uncertainty that ripple through the entire supply chain," the company said in a statement.
Our Take
Here's the thing: President Trump promised to put America First, and using tariffs as leverage is a core part of that playbook. But there's a real question here about whether the executive branch should be able to reach back to a 1930 law that has never been used this way to impose sweeping tariffs without Congress. The Constitution gives Congress the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations — not the president. If we conservatives believe in limited government and the separation of powers, we have to be consistent about it. That doesn't mean we oppose tariffs. It means we oppose any president — Republican or Democrat — sidestepping Congress to impose them. The Liberty Justice Center isn't some left-wing outfit; it's a conservative legal group that has fought government overreach for years. If the administration wants these tariffs to stick, it should make the case to Congress and get the authority it needs. Otherwise, we're setting a precedent that the next Democrat in the White House will happily use against us. Patriots, do you want President Trump's tariffs to be permanent and defensible? Then they need to be legal. This lawsuit is a wake-up call — not for the left, but for anyone who believes the Constitution means what it says.
