Amicus Briefs
V.O.S. Selections, Inc., et al. v. Trump
CASE SUMMARY
NCLA urged the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to affirm the Court of International Trade’s ruling that President Trump’s attempts to impose tariffs using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) are unlawful. The Court of International Trade ruled that IEEPA does not give the President authority to impose unlimited tariffs on goods from nearly all foreign countries.
As NCLA has argued in Simplified, et al. v. Trump, where it brought the first challenge to the emergency tariffs, IEEPA does not authorize any tariffs—only defensive emergency actions such as imposing sanctions or freezing assets to protect the United States from foreign threats. In IEEPA’s nearly 50-year history, no other president has ever tried to use the statute to impose tariffs.
In August 2025, the Federal Circuit ruled that President Trump’s attempts to impose unlimited tariffs on goods from nearly all foreign countries using IEEPA are unlawful, a victory for NCLA.