White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt talks to reporters in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on May 22. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The Supreme Court should intervene after a federal trade court’s Wednesday ruling that blew up much of President Trump’s tariff regime, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday.

Why it matters: Wednesday’s surprise decision threw the rules of global commerce into chaos, adding urgency into the appeals process.

The administration filed a notice of appeal just minutes after the ruling.

Driving the news: Leavitt called Wednesday’s decision “judicial overreach” during a press briefing Thursday, saying, “The courts should have no role here.”

“There is a troubling and dangerous trend of unelected judges inserting themselves into the presidential decision making process,” she said. “America cannot function if President Trump, or any other president for that matter, has their sensitive diplomatic or trade negotiations railroaded by activist judges.”
She added, “But ultimately, the Supreme Court must put an end to this for the sake of our Constitution.”

Context: The three-judge panel — made of Reagan, Obama and Trump appointees — blocked almost all of Trump’s levies to date with their summary judgment that threw out the tariffs he imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA.

The 1977 law — which can be invoked only when the U.S. faces an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to national security, foreign policy, or the economy — had never been used to impose tariffs.

Those tariffs were a cornerstone of the Trump administration’s fiscal plan, which has now been cast into even more uncertainty.
The ruling does not affect tariffs imposed under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 or Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974.