State Attorney General files lawsuit after Supreme Court decision

New York Attorney General Letitia James and top prosecutors in 23 other states They plan to sue again to block President Donald Trump’s global tariff regime, just days after a landmark Supreme Court decision that struck down his previous effort.

The lawsuit, which is expected to be filed Thursday in the Court of International Trade, will seek to have Trump’s latest tariffs declared illegal and orders the money to be returned to the states.

Last month, the Supreme Court invalidated most of Trump’s sweeping “Emancipation Day” tariffs implemented last year, saying his use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose the tariffs was improper.

But the president sought to keep his signature policy alive by immediately announcing a new wave of tariffs, which are based on another law, Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. The global tariff rate is currently 10%, but the Trump administration has said it plans to raise it to 15%.

“After the Supreme Court rejected his first attempt at sweeping tariffs, the President is causing more economic chaos and expects Americans to foot the bill,” James said in a statement provided to CNBC.

“President Trump is ignoring the law and the Constitution to effectively raise taxes on consumers and small businesses,” she said.

The move by a coalition of state attorneys general — most of whom were part of the successful effort to block Trump’s original tariffs — will add to the ongoing international uncertainty created by the president’s tariff policies. A federal court ruled on Wednesday that companies that paid tariffs that the Supreme Court struck down last month deserve billions of dollars in refunds.

In the lawsuit, James and the coalition will allege that Trump is abusing Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, which they say was designed to address specific potential monetary imbalances when the United States was under the gold standard, rather than to combat trade imbalances.

Prosecutors will also allege that the tariffs violate the Constitution’s separation of powers principle, which gives Congress the power to impose tariffs, and that Trump’s tariffs violate requirements of the 1974 Trade Act that they apply consistently across countries.

The effort is “an apparent attempt to evade the Supreme Court’s ruling in the case against IEEPA tariffs,” according to James.

Last year, James and 11 other states sued the Trump administration to stop his original round of tariffs. That effort was eventually combined with lawsuits from small businesses harmed by the tariffs in a Supreme Court case that handed Trump one of the biggest legal setbacks of his second term.

Trump and James had their own legal complications.

His Justice Department charged James in October with two counts of bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution.

However, James faces no charges after a judge dismissed the indictment against her and a grand jury separately declined to revive those efforts.

Correction: The lawsuit from James and other state attorneys general is expected to be filed Thursday. An earlier version had the timing wrong.