Tariffs

Former Trade Officials Explain Why Trump's Section 301 Tariffs Are Illegal

Their brief says the president is asserting "essentially boundless" authority to impose "economy-wide tariffs untethered from the statute Congress enacted."

Jacob Sullum | 9.16.2026 12:01 AM

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President Donald Trump is trying to "shift the exercise of core tariff authority from Congress to the Executive Branch," three former trade officials warn in a brief they filed last week. If that sounds familiar, it's because Trump has attempted something similar twice before, only to be rebuffed by the courts.

This time around, the brief notes, Trump is relying on Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, claiming "a sweeping power to impose broad, economy-wide tariffs untethered from the statute Congress enacted." That assessment is especially noteworthy because the brief's authors, who are urging the Court of International Trade (CIT) to reject Trump's power grab, were intimately involved in drafting and enforcing Section 301.

One of them is Alan Wm. Wolff, who directed the Treasury Department's Office of Multilateral Trade Negotiations and served as general........

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