Trump Tariffs on Canada Spark Latest Lawsuit Over Trade Powers

A legal group that has successfully sued to scuttle President Trump’s past tariffs filed another court challenge on Tuesday, this time targeting the steep duties that he has imposed as part of an ongoing trade war with Canada.

The lawsuit marked the fourth major case brought by the Liberty Justice Center, which once again asked a panel of federal judges to invalidate Mr. Trump’s actions on grounds that he had overstepped the law in ways that harmed American businesses.

The emerging battle concerned the president’s use of Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, a long-dormant section of a decades-old trade statute meant to protect U.S. industry from unreasonable foreign practices. In September, Mr. Trump became the first president to enforce that power as part of a trade spat with Canada, which he has accused of discriminating against American industries.

The president’s tariffs, set at 50 percent, applied to a small yet shifting set of Canadian imports, including some alcoholic beverages, dairy products, hockey sticks, paper goods and more. Mr. Trump chose those items based on a belief that Ottawa had applied undue burdens to certain categories of U.S. products, a move that quickly prompted Canada to retaliate — and set off a tit-for-tat cycle that threatened to damage both economies.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/20/business/trump-tariffs-canada-lawsuit.html