Small Businesses Fight Trump’s Authoritarian Forced-Labor Tariffs, Legal Community Condemns Unlawful Power Grab
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Two small businesses have courageously filed suit against the Trump administration’s sweeping new tariffs, which target 80 countries under the pretense of combating forced labor. Experts widely denounce the move as an unlawful abuse of Section 301, aimed at reviving a global tariff regime previously struck down by the Supreme Court.
On Friday, the Trump administration unleashed a new wave of aggressive tariffs on imports from over 80 countries, cynically citing alleged forced-labor practices as justification. These measures, imposed under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, now cover an astonishing 99.4% of U.S. trade, with punitive 25% duties on Brazilian goods and a draconian 50% proposed rate on certain Canadian products.
Within mere hours of these regressive tariffs taking effect, two small businesses bravely challenged the administration’s overreach in the U.S. Court of International Trade. Their lawsuit exposes the government’s misuse of Section 301 as a thinly veiled excuse to reinstate the broad, corporate-driven tariff regime that the Supreme Court had already invalidated earlier this year. The complaint makes clear: these new duties are 'designed to preserve substantially the same broad tariff regime that this Court and the Supreme Court have held Congress did not authorize.'
'Section 301 is not a freestanding authorization to tax substantially all imports from substantially all trading partners at rates selected to replicate the invalidated IEEPA tariff regime rather than to eliminate identified foreign practices,' the lawsuit states.
Legal scholars overwhelmingly agree that the administration’s actions flagrantly exceed the statutory limits of Section 301. Peter Harrell, a visiting scholar at Georgetown University Law Center, emphasized that the law was 'never intended for the president to just wholesale rewrite the tariff schedule,' warning that these tariffs could—and should—be struck down. UCLA tax law professor Kimberly Clausing called the tariffs 'clearly unlawful,' exposing the forced-labor rationale as a mere pretext for reviving the earlier, undemocratic IEEPA-based regime. Alan Wolff of the Peterson Institute further pointed out that the requirement for a foreign practice to burden U.S. commerce is not even met for the targeted countries, underscoring the administration’s disregard for legal standards.
Despite this, a senior administration official attempted to justify the move, claiming that addressing forced labor has been a 'long-standing focus' for the president and that the timing was chosen to 'avoid complexity.' Meanwhile, a former USTR general counsel noted that Section 301 provides 'considerable flexibility,' making the legal standard difficult to challenge—a chilling reminder of the unchecked executive power at play. KPMG’s trade head warned businesses to brace for the tariffs as they stand, highlighting the administration’s intent to entrench its regressive policies.
The lawsuit, brought by the Liberty Justice Center—an organization with a record of successfully challenging Trump’s previous unlawful tariffs—signals a critical moment in the fight against authoritarian economic policy. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, notably, refused to comment, further illustrating the administration’s lack of transparency and accountability.