July 11, 2025

Wyden, Colleagues Lead Amicus Brief Challenging Trump Administration Abuse of Emergency Powers to Impose Tariffs

Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senators Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said today he is leading Senate and House colleagues in filing an amicus brief in a key case, Oregon, et al., v. Trump, et al., challenging the Trump Administration’s abuse of emergency powers to impose tariffs. 

The brief opposes the Administration’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to levy sweeping tariffs as IEEPA is not a tariff statute.

In June, Wyden and Senators Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Senate Democratic Leader, led 33 senators including Senator Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., in filing an amicus brief at an earlier stage of this case urging the immediate suspension of the tariffs imposed under IEEPA. However, the Federal Circuit declined to suspend the illegal tariffs while it considers the merits of the appeal. 

“This isn’t a close call – IEEPA doesn’t give the president ANY tariff authority, let alone the power to slap sweeping tariffs on products from almost every country on earth,” said Wyden,  Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee,. “The courts should strike down Trump’s illegal tariffs, which are hiking prices for American families and threatening American jobs.” 

“IEEPA contains none of the hallmarks of legislation delegating tariff power to the executive such as limitations tied to specific products or countries, caps on the amount of tariff increases, procedural safeguards, public input, collaboration with Congress, or time limitations,” the lawmakers wrote. “In the five decades since IEEPA’s enactment, no President from either party, aside from the current President, has ever claimed that IEEPA conferred any authority to impose tariffs.” 

“Unmoored from the structural safeguards Congress built into actual tariff statutes, the President’s unlawful 'emergency' tariffs under IEEPA have led to chaos and uncertainty,” the lawmakers continued. 

"This is dysregulation, not delegation,” the lawmakers concluded. “The President’s actions are not consistent with the lawful power Congress granted in IEEPA in 1977 nor America’s constitutional structure. If the President believes that imposing, removing, or amending tariffs are an appropriate policy measure, Congress has given him tools to pursue those goals. But IEEPA is not one of them. This Court should affirm the CIT’s judgment and hold that IEEPA does not authorize tariffs.”

In addition to Wyden, this latest amicus brief was led by Shaheen, Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Representatives Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., Minority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives, Gregory W. Meeks, D-N.Y., Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Joe Neguse, D-Colo., Chair of the House Democrats’ Litigation Task Force, Jamie Raskin, D-Md., Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, and Richard E. Neal, D-Mass., Ranking Member of the House Ways and Means Committee.

The full text of the brief is here.