A federal appeals court on Thursday granted the Trump administration’s request to temporarily pause a lower-court ruling that struck down most of President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
The Trump administration had earlier told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that it would seek “emergency relief” from the Supreme Court as soon as Friday if the tariff ruling was not quickly put on pause.
The judgment issued Wednesday night by the U.S. Court of International Trade is “temporarily stayed until further notice while this court considers the motions papers,” the appeals court said in its order.
The pause gives the Trump administration some breathing room as it prepares to argue that the trade court’s ruling should be halted for the duration of the appeals process.
Trump officials insist that they have other options for imposing tariffs if they do not prevail in the case.
“Even if we lose, we will do it another way,” Trump trade advisor Peter Navarro told reporters at the White House on Thursday afternoon.
Nonetheless, the Wednesday night ruling destabilized a pillar of Trump’s economic agenda: His tariff-fueled campaign to reshape global trade.
Already, the ruling appeared to have weakened the Trump administration’s position in a series of bilateral trade negotiations already underway.
“This decision is being hailed all over the World by every Country, other than the United States of America,” Trump wrote on social media late Thursday.
“If allowed to stand, this would completely destroy Presidential Power — The Presidency would never be the same!” he added, before calling the ruling, “the harshest financial ruling ever leveled on us as a Sovereign Nation.”
The three-judge trade court panel — which included a Trump appointee — invalidated all of Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs and other duties.
The judges found that the 1970s-era law Trump had invoked to enact those tariffs, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, does not “confer such unbounded authority” to presidents.
The nationwide, permanent block they imposed covered all of the retaliatory tariffs that Trump issued in early April as part of his sweeping “liberation day” plan to reshape international trade with the rest of the world.
The ruling also barred the administration from making any future modifications to the tariffs in question. The court gave the administration 10 days to make the necessary changes to carry out the orders.
The government filed a notice of appeal shortly after the judgment came down. It asked the trade court to pause any enforcement of its ruling while the appeal process played out, while also seeking “at least interim relief” from the federal appellate court.
The appeals court gave the plaintiffs — a group that includes state attorneys general and a handful of domestic businesses — one week to respond to the administration’s bid for a stay pending appeal. The government will then have until June 9 to reply.
Jeffrey Schwab, a lawyer for the business plaintiffs, called Thursday’s pause “a procedural step as the court considers the government’s request for a longer stay pending appeal.”
“We are confident the Federal Circuit will ultimately deny the government’s motion shortly thereafter, recognizing the irreparable harm these tariffs inflict on our clients,” Schwab said in a statement.
Both sides seem prepared for the case to advance rapidly to the nation’s highest court.
“Hopefully, the Supreme Court will reverse this horrible, Country threatening decision, QUICKLY and DECISIVELY,” Trump wrote Thursday.