Standing up for Californians

Governor Newsom and Attorney General Bonta argue in the brief that President Trump does not have authority to impose tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), a statute enacted in 1977 that allows the President to take certain specified actions in response to a declared national emergency resulting from an unusual and extraordinary foreign threat. In the nearly fifty years since its enactment, no President has ever before invoked IEEPA to impose tariffs, because IEEPA does not reference the power to tax or tariff at all.  Trump invoked this emergency law because the usual tariff laws that Congress has authorized would not allow for the kind of extreme, erratic tariffs Trump has imposed.

The case, Learning Resources v. Trump and Trump v. V.O.S. Selections, is scheduled for oral argument before the Supreme Court on Wednesday, November 5, 2025. 

“President Trump’s illegal tariffs impact businesses, consumers, and states across the nation — and they are illegal. Any attempt by the Trump Administration to interpret IEEPA as giving it the power to impose tariffs is a feat of mental gymnastics,” said Attorney General Rob Bonta. “No matter how you spin it, no matter what definitions the Administration reaches for, 2 + 2 does not equal 10. Congress does not hide elephants in mouseholes — if Congress had intended to grant the President such extraordinary authority, it would have said so. Today, California asks the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that IEEPA does not authorize the President to impose tariffs.”

Standing up for American families

On April 16, Governor Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit arguing that President Trump lacks the authority to unilaterally impose tariffs through the IEEPA, creating immediate and irreparable harm to California, the world’s fourth-largest economy, and nation’s leading manufacturing and agriculture state.  California’s case has been held in abeyance by the Ninth Circuit pending the Supreme Court’s resolution of these cases. For more information on California’s case, please see here.

Other states and entities nationwide have filed lawsuits of their own. Governor Newsom and Attorney General Bonta have filed an amicus brief in the Court of International Trade in Oregon v. Trump as well as in the D.C. Circuit in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, cases challenging President Trump’s illegal imposition of tariffs.