AIIS files lawsuit challenging constitutionality of Section 232 steel tariffs

The American Institute for International Steel (AIIS), which serves companies in the steel supply chain, and two of its member companies—SIM-TEX LP of Waller, Texas, and Kurt Orban Partners LLC of Burlingame, Calif.—have filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the statute under which President Trump imposed a 25 percent tariff on imported steel. The lawsuit seeks a declaration that the law relied on by Trump to impose that tariff is unconstitutional, as well as a court order preventing further enforcement of the 25 percent tariff increase.

In its lawsuit, AIIS and the two companies allege that Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 violates the constitutional prohibition against Congress delegating its legislative powers to the president because it lacks any “intelligible principle” to limit the discretion of the president. The statute allows the president to impose unlimited tariffs or create other trade barriers at his unfettered discretion if he believes they are needed so that “imports will not threaten to impair the national security.”

“In addition to the totally open-ended choice of how to counter any threat that imports may present, Section 232 allows the president to consider virtually any effect on the U.S. economy as part of ‘national security,’” said AIIS President Richard Chriss.

The complaint also rests on another constitutional flaw in the law, which plaintiffs say violates the doctrine of separation of powers and the system of checks and balances that the Constitution protects: There is no provision for judicial review of the president’s decisions in how he responds to the perceived threat to national security from imported steel.