California Sues Over Trump Tariffs, Saying the President Lacks Authority to Impose Them Unilaterally
At an almond orchard in Ceres, in Stanislaus County, California, Governor Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta announced jointly on April 16, 2025, that California had sued President Trump in federal court, challenging his use of emergency powers to enact broad-sweeping tariffs unilaterally. California thereby became the first state in the nation to sue the Trump administration over the tariffs.
The lawsuit was brought by the State of California together with Newsom in his official capacity as governor, and the complaint was filed that day in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco, Case No. 25-cv-03372. The defendants include Trump in his official capacity as president. The complaint asks the court to declare the tariffs imposed by President Trump void and enjoin their implementation.
The core claim is that the president lacks the authority to impose tariffs unilaterally without Congress. The lawsuit argues that Trump's use of the International Economic Emergency Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose tariffs against Mexico, China, and Canada, and to create an across-the-board 10% tariff, is unlawful and unprecedented: the IEEPA, enacted by Congress in 1977, specifies many different actions the president can take after declaring a national emergency, but tariffs are not one of them, and this is the first time a president has attempted to rely on the law to impose tariffs.
The lawsuit also invokes the U.S. Supreme Court's major questions doctrine, which holds that on novel matters of vast economic and political significance, federal agencies and the executive branch must have clear and specific authorization from Congress. California argues that it is difficult to imagine a more economically significant set of actions than Trump's tariffs, which have inflicted hundreds of billions of dollars in economic losses using a statute that does not mention tariffs.
Announcing the suit, Newsom said: "President Trump's unlawful tariffs are wreaking chaos on California families, businesses, and our economy — driving up prices and threatening jobs. We're standing up for American families who can't afford to let the chaos continue." Bonta said the president's chaotic and haphazard implementation of tariffs was "not only deeply troubling, it's illegal," and that from farmers in the Central Valley to small businesses in Sacramento and worried families at the kitchen table, the game the president was playing had very real consequences for Californians across the state.
Figures released by the governor's office show that California's gross domestic product was $3.9 trillion in 2023, 50% bigger than that of Texas, the nation's next-largest state, making California the fifth-largest economy in the world and the nation's leading manufacturing and agriculture state. California engaged in nearly $675 billion in two-way trade in 2024, and its top three trading partners — Mexico, Canada, and China — accounted for more than 40% of the state's imports. The governor's office said the tariffs had already disrupted supply chains, inflated costs for the state and Californians, and inflicted billions in damages on California's economy, including for the state's more than 60,000 small-business exporters. (Source: Office of the Governor of California)
Related: Trump Signs Executive Order 14257 Imposing Reciprocal Tariffs: 10% Baseline Worldwide, 34% on China
Related: Trump Pauses Country-Specific Reciprocal Tariffs for 90 Days, Raises China Rate to 125%
Source: Office of the Governor of California
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：位于萨克拉门托的加州议会大厦（加州州长办公室所在地，资料图）。图：Andre m，CC BY-SA 3.0，via Wikimedia Commons / Photo: The California State Capitol in Sacramento, home to the Office of the Governor of California (file photo). Photo: Andre m, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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- 2025-04-16California Sues Over Trump Tariffs, Saying the President Lacks Authority to Impose Them UnilaterallyThis story
