September 11, 2025 • 34 mins
Professor Elora Mukherjee, the director of Columbia Law School’s Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, discusses the Supreme Court decision on immigration stops and representing families in ICE detention. David Townsend, a partner in Dorsey & Whitney’s International Trade Group, discusses the Supreme Court agreeing to review President Trump’s tariffs on an expedited basis. June Grasso hosts.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is Bloomberg Law with June Grosso from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
They're calling it Operation Midway Blitz. President Donald Trump has
started his immigration cracked down in Chicago, with agents flooding
the city as it becomes the latest flashpoint in a
national struggle over how far the federal government can push
local authorities in sanctuary cities to cooperate with its immigration agenda.
(00:31):
Though the administration has said the operation will target the
worst of the worst criminals who are not in the
country legally, Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzker says the operation
is making many law abiding immigrants, even those who are citizens, fearful.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
They're afraid to go shopping, They're afraid to take their
own children.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
To school because they have mixed status households.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Immigration advocates say that ICE agents also appear to be
stopping and arresting people on the street. So how will
the Supreme Court's ruling this week that lifted the ban
on ICE agents in LA stopping and detaining people solely
based on their race, language, occupation, or location affect the
(01:18):
ICE operations in Chicago. My guest is Laura Muokerjee, a
professor at Columbia Law School, and director of the school's
immigrants Rights clinic, Laura, how do you think the Supreme
Court's ruling this week will affect these immigration stops?
Speaker 4 (01:35):
The Supreme Court issued a devastating opinion on Monday. It's
first worth noting that the full Court issued a decision
that was only one paragraph long, and it was accompanied
by a concurring opinion by Justice Kavanaugh and a dissenting
opinion that was joined by this three liberal progressive justices,
(01:59):
Justice Mayor, Justice Kagan, and Justice Jackson. And the question
in the case is whether a federal district court's decision
should stand. And the federal district court had found that
raids were part of a pattern of conduct by the
government that likely violated the Fourth Amendment. And the district
(02:22):
court found that the government was stopping individuals based solely
on four factors. They're apparent race or ethnicity, whether they
spoke Spanish or English with an accent, the type of
location where they were found, such as a car wash
or a bus stop, and the type of job that
they appeared to work at. And the district court found
(02:43):
that these four factors, taken alone, that's not sufficient to
satisfy the Fourth amendments requirement of reasonable suspicion, and the
District Court enjoined the federal government immigration officers from using
those four factors alone in carrying out immigration enforcement. The
(03:04):
Executive brand then appealed that case to the Ninth Circuit,
and the Ninth Circuit said, while the case is pending,
we're going to let the lower court decision stand. And
then the Executive Branch further appealed that to the US
Supreme Court, and in monday's one paragraph decision, the Court said,
(03:25):
we are vacating, we are ending the lower court decision.
What this means in practice is that immigration officers, as
well as other law enforcement officers now practically have an
invitation to engage in racial profiling when they are carrying
out stops. As the concurrence by Justice Kavanaugh suggests, race
(03:49):
ethnicity can now be used as a factor in establishing
reasonable suspicion about whether or not a person is in
the United States illegally without documentation.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Justice Kavanaugh really downplayed what these stops are like, saying,
you know, it's typically brief. You can go free after
you show you're a citizen or that you're here illegally.
Does that comport with reality.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Justice.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
Kavanagh's concurrence minimizes the violence that is used in these
stops and minimizes the harm to individuals, families, and communities
from racial profiling. One of the plaintiffs in this very
case is Jason Gavidia, a Latino US citizen who was
(04:38):
ordered to stop by masked agents and they asked him
questions then used violence against him, even though he had
repeated at least three times that he's an American citizen.
They took his phone, they pushed him up against the
metal gated fence, They put his hands behind his back,
they twisted his arms, and they never gave him his
(05:01):
ID back. Another US citizen, Jorge Viramontes, was repeatedly questioned
when he was at his place of work between June
ninth and June nineteenth of this year. Every time he
was asked if he was a US citizen, he had
to show his ID. And the effect of this decision
(05:23):
is that America has become a show me your papers
country for the overwhelming majority of people of color. While
this decision specifically focuses on people who are Latino in LA,
the implications of this decision invite racial profiling nationwide.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
I said they were going to flood the zone. This
gives them now the authority to go full speed ahead.
What does that mean for cities like Los Angeles and Chicago.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
With the passage of the so called Big Beautiful Bill,
there are now billions more dollars allocated to ICE and
immigration enforcement and immigration detention. What this opens up is
the possibility for immigration officers and federal law enforcement officers
(06:17):
on the streets of many major cities in the United States. Now.
I hope we never get to that point, and we
are seeing the people and elected officials of Chicago resisting
there so that what happened in LA isn't replicated in Chicago.
And in terms of what happens next, it will be
(06:39):
up to the American people and the extent to which
we can resist the worst abuses of the executive brand.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
So I know you represent some families that are in
ICED attention. How difficult is it to represent someone who's
being held by ICE?
Speaker 4 (06:57):
It is extraordinarily difficult to represent people in ICE custody.
Right now, the youngest person I'm representing in ICE custody
is only two years old. Immigration detention centers are often
located in areas that are hard to access in geographically
remote areas of the country. For example, the Family Detention
(07:19):
Center in Dilley, Texas is more than an hour outside
of San Antonio, and it can be difficult to have
reliable access to your clients and to prepare court hearings. Increasingly,
immigration court hearings for asylum seekers who are detained or
(07:41):
being scheduled on a very fast turnaround time because the
administration is trying to push forward deportations as quickly as
possible without sufficient time and sufficient due process for many
immigrants to prepare. It's also very difficult for many immigrants
to access counsel while they are in detention because it's
(08:05):
so much harder to contact a lawyer and get someone
to work with you while you're detained.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
I mean, what's life like in an iced atention facility.
Speaker 4 (08:15):
It's very difficult for many immigrants in immigration custody. Overwhelmingly,
immigration detention centers are overcrowded and unsanitary. Often people don't
have access to high quality or sufficient food. At the
(08:36):
Family Detention Center in Dilly, children have submitted swarn testimony
to federal court explaining that there is not adequate clean
water putable water and that adults at times have pushed
children out of the way in an effort to get
access to the water. There are questions about the quality
(08:59):
of metaw care in immigration detention centers, and immigration detention
is simply not an appropriate place for children who are
seeking asylum. One of the cases I worked on the
summer involved a six year old child with a leukemia
(09:19):
diagnosis who was arrested when he and his family showed
up to their immigration court hearing in LA and then
they were detained for over a month. During that time,
I begged DHS to release the six year old boy
and his family, and it took filing a federal habeas petition,
(09:42):
so a petition in federal court for DHS to realize
that this family should not be detained.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Aren't there special protections for children?
Speaker 4 (09:52):
For decades, immigrant children has received protections under an agreement
a settlement agreed known as the Flora's Settlement Agreement, which
requires the federal government to provide basic minimum protections for
children in federal care, both in terms of conditions of
custody and prioritizing children for release. Because nearly everyone recognizes
(10:17):
that children shouldn't be in federal immigration custody federal detention
centers for long periods of time. Very Unfortunately, the Trump
administration has moved to terminate, meaning end, the protections in
the Flora's Settlement Agreement, and if the Trump administration prevails
in court, children in federal immigration custody will be left
(10:42):
with virtually no means of protection.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
As far as the asylum hearings themselves, are the standards
what they should be, or are they imposing tougher standards
for asylum?
Speaker 4 (10:56):
Increasingly it's harder to win asylum in the US United States.
In recent days, the Board of Immigration Appeals has issued
multiple opinions that rescind protections for categories of asylum seekers,
such as asylum seekers who've been persecuted based on their
membership in a particular family or based on their gender
(11:19):
and nationality, for example, for survivors of domestic violence. In addition,
there have been myriad changes on the immigration judge bench.
Since January of twenty twenty five. It appears that more
than one hundred immigration judges has been fired, and the
Trump administration is trying to replace those seasoned immigration judges
(11:43):
with judges from the military jag officers who Instead of
being trained for months, which has historically been the standard
for immigration judges, will receive two weeks of training before
dealing with cases on a daily basis where people's lives
are literally at risk. These are life or death decisions
(12:04):
for many of the individuals who appear before immigration court.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Laura, thanks so much for giving us a little bit
of an inside look at iced attention. That's Professor Laura
Mukherjee of Columbia Law School. Coming up next, the Supreme
Court is taking on Trump's tariffs. This is bloomberg.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
If you took away tariffs, we could end up being
a third world country.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
President Trump warned of dire consequences after the US Court
of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that he had
exceeded his authority by invoking an emergency law to hit
nations across the globe with steep tariffs. The administration rushed
to the Supreme Court to appeal, asking for a quick
(12:51):
resolution concerning his signature economic policy.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
If that ruling everyone against US, I guess would have
to give back hundreds of billions. We would have to
give trillions and trillions of dollars back to countries that
have been ripping us off for the last thirty five years,
and I can't imagine it happening on a legal basis.
(13:15):
They have no legal basis whatsoever. But on a common
sense basis, it would destroy America.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
The Supreme Court accommodated Trump, as the conservative majority has
in almost all of the emergency cases filed since January.
It's set a lightning fast timetable by the Court standards
with arguments in November. The appeal will test the conservative
controlled court. It will be the first time during Trump's
(13:43):
second term that the justices will actually hear arguments, get
full briefings, and then weigh the underlying legal merits of
an administration policy. Joining me is David Townshend, a partner
in Dorsey and Whitney's international trade group. Dave, the Court
has set an unusually aggressive schedule for the court. When
(14:06):
do you think we'll get a decision?
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Hard to know. The Supreme Court, you can move at
its own case. The schedule that was agreed to had
been proposed by the United States and its appeal from
the Federal Circuit decision, and was not opposed and actually
supported by the plaintiffs in the case. Who are US
(14:28):
importers and alleged that the tariffs are unlawful in terms
of schedule. I suppose because they did establish expedited briefing.
We have the hearing in November. If the Supreme Court
wanted to move very quickly, it could issue something before
the end of the year. It's also possible that this
will go well into twenty twenty six before we actually
(14:49):
have an opinion.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
The Federal Circuit ruled seven to four that AIPA, the
International Emergency Economic Powers Act, doesn't authorize the these tariffs.
Explain how the Federal Circuit came to that conclusion.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Yeah, the Federal Circuit had said that the case is
really a statutory interpretation case, at least in terms of
the opinion issued by the Federal Circuit. Federal Circuit was
looking at whether the International Emergency Economic Powers Actor AIPA
authorizes the teriffs that the Trump administration has imposed on
global sources, including for trade deficits as well as fentanyl
(15:29):
related tariffs under a EPA, and the Federal Circuit said
that it didn't think AEPA did authorize the teriffs that
the Trump administration imposed and held them all awful. The
Federal story it looked to a couple different sources to
support its conclusion. There's quite a bit of discussion in
(15:49):
the opinion about other areas of US trade law, areas
where Congress had used words explicitly allowing the imposition or
adjustment of tariffs or duties. When the Federal cirgut noted
that AEPA doesn't use the word duties or tariffs in
it it allows the regulation of importation into the United States.
(16:12):
But in light of the absence of the words tariffs
or duties, but all sergu found that they did not
think Congress intended that AEPA allowed the imposition of global
tariffs in the way the Trump administration had done. They
also pointed out that as a constitutional matter, the power
to impose duties under Article one resides with Congress, and
(16:34):
they use that as a way to interpret AEPA as
inconsistent with what the Trump administration had done. And they
also noted that no prior president had used AIPA to
impose tariffs.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
So it sounds like the majority sort of took the
safe route, the conservative route in their analysis, although there
were dissenting judges.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Yeah, I mean, the federal circuit fractured seven to four.
As you said, there were some of the judges on
the Federal Circuit who said that ap but never allows tariffs.
The majority opinion didn't quite go that far, and then
the descent said that they do think AIPA is intended
to allow the president to impose the kind of tarifs
(17:19):
and adjust the tariffs in the way the Trump administration has.
I mean, I think that the majority opinion really sticks
to this as a statutory interpretation question at its core,
rather than looking to the constitutional issues such as a
non delegation doctrine that decide the case.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
What's the key argument that the Trump administration is making here?
Does it focus on that provision in AEPA that says
that the president can regulate the importation of property to
address an emergency?
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Yeah? Right. The AYEPA text allows the president to take
action to regulate the importation of items into the United States.
And the Trump administration's core argument is that the power
to regulate encompasses the power to impose taxes and duties
such as they've done here. And as support for that,
(18:13):
they note that the AEPA statute itself allows a variety
of actions. It allows broad discretion to the president to
prohibit importation of items into the United States. It allows
the president to prohibit transactions with certain countries. There are
certain persons in non US locations, and so if it
(18:36):
allows the prohibition of transactions or the prohibition of imports,
and also allows the regulation of imports, then, according to
the Trump administration, follows that they can impose taxes or
duties or something short of such prohibitions, including the terrorf
regime that the Trump administration is currently administering under AEPA
(18:57):
and using as a basis to negotiate trade agreements with
other countries.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Of course, no one knows how the Supreme Court will rule,
but Bloomberg Intelligence has determined there is a sixty percent
chance that the justices will agree that the reciprocal tariffs
are illegal because the trade deficit isn't an emergency. But
we'll find that the fentanyl tariffs are lawful and reinstate them.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
What do you think, Yeah, it's possible that the Supreme
Court could do something like that, And certainly the ultimate
outcome in terms of what the Supreme Court issues as
any remedy should it find the IPA terrifs or unlawful,
is wide open and difficult to predict. I think that
the initial statutory question, does AEPA allow the imposition of
(19:48):
tariffs is one question, and the Supreme Court could say
something like, yes, we think APA can permit tariffs. And
in fact, there's a lengthy discussion in the Federal Circuit
opinion about a prior court case called Yoshida, where an
appellate court had looked at exactly that issue under the
APA predecessor statute called the Trading with the Enemy Act.
(20:09):
So there's the question, does APO out tariffs? They could
answer that yes, it does, but they could also say
something to the effect of the executive orders issued here
in some manner go beyond what we think AYIPA was
intended to permit, especially if the Supreme Court thinks that's
wide open into discretionary and how the administration is adjusting
(20:30):
the tariffs. I'm not sure I would say that I
think that outcome is likely, but it does show you
that there are various steps of the analysis that the
Supreme Court could use to ultimately reach the outcoming conclusion
in the case.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
No present before has tried to use AIPA to impose tariffs,
but has the Court addressed anything similar in the past.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Yeah, the Supreme Court has looked at AIPA before. For example,
there was a prior case involved the Iranian hostages that
were taken during the Iranian Revolution. The United States citizens
who were held hostage in Iran, and the President had
used AIPA as a basis to negotiate a process for
(21:15):
the hostages to be released, but also for the resolution
of claims against Iran that arose out of the revolution,
where's people's property had been seized or taken. And so
the Supreme Court was forced in that case to look
at whether AEPA allowed the president to essentially nullify court
cases that were ongoing and property that had been sees
(21:38):
pursued to those court cases. And in that case, the
Supreme Court said that AIPA is a broad grant of power.
It is designed to allow the president to negotiate and
thus would allow the president to freeze or exterminate claims
in US courts relating to the Iranian Revolution. I mean,
(21:58):
you know, whether that has a bearing on the issue
before the Court now relating to tariffs and the Trump
administration executive order is sort of unclear. It's it's not
hard to distinguish between the situation the Supreme Court looked
at there and the one before the Court today.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Could the Major Questions doctrine come into play because that
stopped Biden from his student loan program.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
The Federal Circuit said, yes, that the Major Questions doctrine
is relevant here. They noted the vast what they called
economics and political significance of the case, and the Federal
Circuit found that countfuls for a narrower view of what
Congress intended in enacting AEPA, especially given that the President
(22:46):
had never previously used AIPA as a basis for the
imposition of tariff. Whether that is the path that the
Supreme Court ultimately uses to resolve the case very difficult
to predict. And at the Federal turget it did not
think the Major Questions doctrine prohibited the executive orders and
(23:06):
the imposition of tariffs here, both the reciprocal and the
fentanyl related tariffs. So you know, you can dig both sides.
Whether the Supreme Court will be persuaded that that doctrine
applies is unclear.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
Coming up next on the Bloomberg Law Show, I'll continue
this conversation with Dave Townsend. How is all this uncertainty
about the tariffs affecting companies? I'm June Grasso, and you're
listening to Bloomberg.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
But some whack job put in a lawsuit. It went
before a very liberal court, and the liberal court ruled
who was eleven? They ruled seven to four, with one
of the most liberal of them all voting in our favor.
Because they're patriots. I think I give tremendous credit to
that judge. And now it's going to the Supreme Court.
(24:00):
We're going to be asking for early admittance. But some
whack job put in a lawsuit. It went before a
very liberal court, and the liberal court ruled was eleven.
They've ruled seven to four, with one of the most
liberal of them all voting in our favor because they're patriots.
(24:20):
I think I give tremendous credit to that judge. And
now it's going to the Supreme Court.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
The Supreme Court has agreed to take up an appeal
from the Trump administration after lower courts found most of
his tariffs illegal. The case involves two sets of import taxes,
both of which Trump justified by declaring a national emergency.
The challenged taxes include Trump's April second Liberation Day tariffs,
(24:47):
which impose levies of ten to fifty percent on most
US imports, depending on the country they come from, and
also tariff's Trump imposed on Canada, Mexico, and China in
the name of addressing fentanyl trafficking. The cases were brought
by Democratic led states and a group of small businesses.
(25:08):
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled
that Trump exceeded his authority by invoking an emergency law
AIPA to hit nations across the globe with steep tariffs,
upholding an earlier ruling by the Court of International Trade.
I've been talking to Dave Townshend of Dorsey and Whitney. Dave,
(25:29):
let's say that the Supreme Court rules against the tariffs
across the board. I mean, what happens then the government
has to refund money? How would it work?
Speaker 1 (25:39):
There are several different avenues of relief that could come
out of the Supreme Court case here, and obviously we
don't know until the Supreme Court actually rules on it.
The Court of International Trade, the lower court at originally
issued relief at the all importers that had said if
it's illegal, as to the plaintiffs, that's the illegal as
(25:59):
to all and if directed the government to cease collecting
the reciprocal and sentinel related tariff under APA. The Federal
Circuit stepped in and paused the effect of that part
of this cit ruling, and in its August twenty ninth rolling,
the Federal Circuit agreed largely with the Court of International
Trade out of the outcome of the case, that is,
(26:20):
the IPA terriffs were held unlawful, but it again stayed
its decision and impact pending appeals at the Supreme Court.
So that's just a long way of saying the original
look at this from the Court of International Trades that
the relief should apply to everybody, should apply to all importers.
The Federal Circuit did note that this Court of International
(26:43):
Trades failed to look at whether such a nationwide remedy
was appropriate in light of a Supreme Court case recently issued.
That case was dealing with birthright citizenship. So the Federal
Circuit was saying to the Court of International Trade, you
have to look at this intervening case to see whether
it would be appropriate for a nationwide revenue. There are
(27:08):
under trade other avenues for relief here for companies looking
to recoup the revenue. One would be to bring their
own court case. Another would be to pursue protests against
the US Customs in due course as the import entries
go through the normal process of review, liquidation, and finalization
by US Customs. So we don't know. I mean, I
(27:29):
think ultimately there could be an administrative process established here
if there were a ruling against the United States that
would allow importers to come back and prove they were
owed money. It's also possible that there won't be a
process and that companies will just be forced to go
through the usual court or administrative processes.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Does the Supreme Court consider on any level the difficult
process of unwinding the tariffs?
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Yeah, I think the Supreme Court has in other circumstances
that you know, it's concerned about accepting arguments in favor
of plaintiffs that would cause a painful unwinding process for
the US government. Whether that has much, if any of
an impact here is hard to say. I think that
(28:19):
you know, from my perspective as an attorney who who
advises US importers and is familiar with the importation process,
there is an automated process by which these AEPA teriffs
are imposed, and that automated process creates the data the
government needs to identify and refund the tariffs. So I'm
(28:42):
not ultimately convinced that the process of refunding the tariffs
would just be so hopelessly complicated that the government couldn't
do it. And I'll just give you one example of
why that is, the government in the ordinary course does
not liquidate import entries for roughly ten months until the
data endoration, and so you can go all the way
(29:02):
back to import entries in April when the reciprocal tariffs
are originally imposed, and those entries are not yet finalized
by customs. So there is sort of a way for
the government to easily track and then refund the duties
if they had to, although the scale of it would
be massive, obviously.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
And so as far as you know businesses or importers
that you represent, what does this period of uncertainty until
the Supreme Court rules, what does it do to them?
Speaker 1 (29:34):
In the meantime, everyone's paying the tariffs, and so I
think companies are still trying to assess what the likelihood
is that there could be refunds here I can tell
you that companies, and we've seen this in the news
and listeners have probably seen it in retail stores where
(29:56):
prices have gone up in certain cases, or contracts have
been revised in a way to permit companies to raise
prices as a result of the tariffs, and all of
that would all of a sudden be called into question
if the Supreme Court ultimately ruled that the tariffs were illegal. Though,
(30:17):
whether there would be a rollback or reductions of price
as a result of the case and or because of
refunds received by importers. I think that would be different
potentially in different industries and in different market situations. But
you know, I can tell you that there have already
been adjustments, and so how quickly things would snap back
(30:38):
that would be something that businesses would have to I
think consider on a case by case basis.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
Is there anything else that businesses are considering in light
of these tariffs.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Well, I think the way the tariffs were imposed, companies
could see them coming. They built up inventories in the
first quarter of the year. Those inventories that most been
drawn down in such a way that now they're having
and have been recently having to make tough decisions on
the pricing and whether they're passing on the terraffs. You know,
(31:10):
in terms of looking forward, I think companies are balancing
whether to wait and see whether the terrorifts are ultimately
upheld or whether they just take the action they feel
that it is appropriate.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Now.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
I mean, I would say this about what the ultimate
impact of the Supreme Court case is. If they were
to find that the tariffs were unlawful and strike them down.
The Trump administration isn't just going to give up. There
will be a second, you know, a plan B so
to speak, that probably is already prepared that would be
imposed very quickly, is what I suspect. And so it's
(31:50):
not as though if the Supreme Court issues are ruling
against the United States, it's not as though the teriffts
will just be gone. There will be something coming down
the pipeline, probably fairly quickly to impose something similar.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
Yeah, Administration officials have basically downplayed the impact of the
litigation and said that most of the terriffs can be
imposed by other legal avenues. I mean, what would that
be and why didn't they use it in the first place.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
I think the administration chose to use IEPA because it
was they knew they could do it quickly and immediately,
and they wanted to begin the process of negotiating trade
agreements as fast as possible because it's a lengthy process
to negotiate trade agreements. There are a variety of other
legal authorities the administration could use if they needed to
(32:40):
replace the IEPA TIFFs. I would expect a combination of
authorities would be used. Something immediate that allows them to
impose tariffs right away, coupled with some combination of Section
two thirty two, which is national security related tariffs and
three oh one, what's their teriffs to address on SAT
trading practices like the kind of Trump administration imposed on
(33:02):
China in twenty eighteen, And so they would be able
to cobble together something that looks at least somewhat similar
to the current regime in terms of the ultimate impact
and the ultimate size of the tariffs.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
If these tariffs are upheld, how much of a victory
would that be for Trump and how much would it
bolster presidential power?
Speaker 1 (33:27):
It would be significant, no doubt, because what that would
do in the most immediate terms, Obviously, the executive orders
would remain the IPA teriffs would remain. I think the
Trump administration would be likely to view that as a
signal that they can use their AEPA authority to adjust
up or down as they see fit the tariff rates
(33:48):
for countries, and they would be emboldened to continue the
course of potentially raising tariffs on countries that take actions
they don't like and lowering them for countries that agree to,
you know, whatever trade concessions they're hoping to get out
of those countries. So I think that process would just
continue and it would be fully legal looking forward.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
Thanks for joining me, Dave. That's David Townsend, a partner
in Dorsey and Whitney's International Trade Group. And that's it
for this edition of the Bloomberg Law Show. Remember you
can always get the latest legal news on our Bloomberg
Law podcasts. You can find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
and at www dot Bloomberg dot com, slash podcast Slash Law,
(34:31):
and remember to tune into The Bloomberg Law Show every
weeknight at ten pm Wall Street Time. I'm Jim Grosso,
and you're listening to Bloomberg
This is Bloomberg Law with June Grosso from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
They're calling it Operation Midway Blitz. President Donald Trump has
started his immigration cracked down in Chicago, with agents flooding
the city as it becomes the latest flashpoint in a
national struggle over how far the federal government can push
local authorities in sanctuary cities to cooperate with its immigration agenda.
(00:31):
Though the administration has said the operation will target the
worst of the worst criminals who are not in the
country legally, Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzker says the operation
is making many law abiding immigrants, even those who are citizens, fearful.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
They're afraid to go shopping, They're afraid to take their
own children.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
To school because they have mixed status households.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Immigration advocates say that ICE agents also appear to be
stopping and arresting people on the street. So how will
the Supreme Court's ruling this week that lifted the ban
on ICE agents in LA stopping and detaining people solely
based on their race, language, occupation, or location affect the
(01:18):
ICE operations in Chicago. My guest is Laura Muokerjee, a
professor at Columbia Law School, and director of the school's
immigrants Rights clinic, Laura, how do you think the Supreme
Court's ruling this week will affect these immigration stops?
Speaker 4 (01:35):
The Supreme Court issued a devastating opinion on Monday. It's
first worth noting that the full Court issued a decision
that was only one paragraph long, and it was accompanied
by a concurring opinion by Justice Kavanaugh and a dissenting
opinion that was joined by this three liberal progressive justices,
(01:59):
Justice Mayor, Justice Kagan, and Justice Jackson. And the question
in the case is whether a federal district court's decision
should stand. And the federal district court had found that
raids were part of a pattern of conduct by the
government that likely violated the Fourth Amendment. And the district
(02:22):
court found that the government was stopping individuals based solely
on four factors. They're apparent race or ethnicity, whether they
spoke Spanish or English with an accent, the type of
location where they were found, such as a car wash
or a bus stop, and the type of job that
they appeared to work at. And the district court found
(02:43):
that these four factors, taken alone, that's not sufficient to
satisfy the Fourth amendments requirement of reasonable suspicion, and the
District Court enjoined the federal government immigration officers from using
those four factors alone in carrying out immigration enforcement. The
(03:04):
Executive brand then appealed that case to the Ninth Circuit,
and the Ninth Circuit said, while the case is pending,
we're going to let the lower court decision stand. And
then the Executive Branch further appealed that to the US
Supreme Court, and in monday's one paragraph decision, the Court said,
(03:25):
we are vacating, we are ending the lower court decision.
What this means in practice is that immigration officers, as
well as other law enforcement officers now practically have an
invitation to engage in racial profiling when they are carrying
out stops. As the concurrence by Justice Kavanaugh suggests, race
(03:49):
ethnicity can now be used as a factor in establishing
reasonable suspicion about whether or not a person is in
the United States illegally without documentation.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Justice Kavanaugh really downplayed what these stops are like, saying,
you know, it's typically brief. You can go free after
you show you're a citizen or that you're here illegally.
Does that comport with reality.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Justice.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
Kavanagh's concurrence minimizes the violence that is used in these
stops and minimizes the harm to individuals, families, and communities
from racial profiling. One of the plaintiffs in this very
case is Jason Gavidia, a Latino US citizen who was
(04:38):
ordered to stop by masked agents and they asked him
questions then used violence against him, even though he had
repeated at least three times that he's an American citizen.
They took his phone, they pushed him up against the
metal gated fence, They put his hands behind his back,
they twisted his arms, and they never gave him his
(05:01):
ID back. Another US citizen, Jorge Viramontes, was repeatedly questioned
when he was at his place of work between June
ninth and June nineteenth of this year. Every time he
was asked if he was a US citizen, he had
to show his ID. And the effect of this decision
(05:23):
is that America has become a show me your papers
country for the overwhelming majority of people of color. While
this decision specifically focuses on people who are Latino in LA,
the implications of this decision invite racial profiling nationwide.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
I said they were going to flood the zone. This
gives them now the authority to go full speed ahead.
What does that mean for cities like Los Angeles and Chicago.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
With the passage of the so called Big Beautiful Bill,
there are now billions more dollars allocated to ICE and
immigration enforcement and immigration detention. What this opens up is
the possibility for immigration officers and federal law enforcement officers
(06:17):
on the streets of many major cities in the United States. Now.
I hope we never get to that point, and we
are seeing the people and elected officials of Chicago resisting
there so that what happened in LA isn't replicated in Chicago.
And in terms of what happens next, it will be
(06:39):
up to the American people and the extent to which
we can resist the worst abuses of the executive brand.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
So I know you represent some families that are in
ICED attention. How difficult is it to represent someone who's
being held by ICE?
Speaker 4 (06:57):
It is extraordinarily difficult to represent people in ICE custody.
Right now, the youngest person I'm representing in ICE custody
is only two years old. Immigration detention centers are often
located in areas that are hard to access in geographically
remote areas of the country. For example, the Family Detention
(07:19):
Center in Dilley, Texas is more than an hour outside
of San Antonio, and it can be difficult to have
reliable access to your clients and to prepare court hearings. Increasingly,
immigration court hearings for asylum seekers who are detained or
(07:41):
being scheduled on a very fast turnaround time because the
administration is trying to push forward deportations as quickly as
possible without sufficient time and sufficient due process for many
immigrants to prepare. It's also very difficult for many immigrants
to access counsel while they are in detention because it's
(08:05):
so much harder to contact a lawyer and get someone
to work with you while you're detained.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
I mean, what's life like in an iced atention facility.
Speaker 4 (08:15):
It's very difficult for many immigrants in immigration custody. Overwhelmingly,
immigration detention centers are overcrowded and unsanitary. Often people don't
have access to high quality or sufficient food. At the
(08:36):
Family Detention Center in Dilly, children have submitted swarn testimony
to federal court explaining that there is not adequate clean
water putable water and that adults at times have pushed
children out of the way in an effort to get
access to the water. There are questions about the quality
(08:59):
of metaw care in immigration detention centers, and immigration detention
is simply not an appropriate place for children who are
seeking asylum. One of the cases I worked on the
summer involved a six year old child with a leukemia
(09:19):
diagnosis who was arrested when he and his family showed
up to their immigration court hearing in LA and then
they were detained for over a month. During that time,
I begged DHS to release the six year old boy
and his family, and it took filing a federal habeas petition,
(09:42):
so a petition in federal court for DHS to realize
that this family should not be detained.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Aren't there special protections for children?
Speaker 4 (09:52):
For decades, immigrant children has received protections under an agreement
a settlement agreed known as the Flora's Settlement Agreement, which
requires the federal government to provide basic minimum protections for
children in federal care, both in terms of conditions of
custody and prioritizing children for release. Because nearly everyone recognizes
(10:17):
that children shouldn't be in federal immigration custody federal detention
centers for long periods of time. Very Unfortunately, the Trump
administration has moved to terminate, meaning end, the protections in
the Flora's Settlement Agreement, and if the Trump administration prevails
in court, children in federal immigration custody will be left
(10:42):
with virtually no means of protection.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
As far as the asylum hearings themselves, are the standards
what they should be, or are they imposing tougher standards
for asylum?
Speaker 4 (10:56):
Increasingly it's harder to win asylum in the US United States.
In recent days, the Board of Immigration Appeals has issued
multiple opinions that rescind protections for categories of asylum seekers,
such as asylum seekers who've been persecuted based on their
membership in a particular family or based on their gender
(11:19):
and nationality, for example, for survivors of domestic violence. In addition,
there have been myriad changes on the immigration judge bench.
Since January of twenty twenty five. It appears that more
than one hundred immigration judges has been fired, and the
Trump administration is trying to replace those seasoned immigration judges
(11:43):
with judges from the military jag officers who Instead of
being trained for months, which has historically been the standard
for immigration judges, will receive two weeks of training before
dealing with cases on a daily basis where people's lives
are literally at risk. These are life or death decisions
(12:04):
for many of the individuals who appear before immigration court.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Laura, thanks so much for giving us a little bit
of an inside look at iced attention. That's Professor Laura
Mukherjee of Columbia Law School. Coming up next, the Supreme
Court is taking on Trump's tariffs. This is bloomberg.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
If you took away tariffs, we could end up being
a third world country.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
President Trump warned of dire consequences after the US Court
of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that he had
exceeded his authority by invoking an emergency law to hit
nations across the globe with steep tariffs. The administration rushed
to the Supreme Court to appeal, asking for a quick
(12:51):
resolution concerning his signature economic policy.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
If that ruling everyone against US, I guess would have
to give back hundreds of billions. We would have to
give trillions and trillions of dollars back to countries that
have been ripping us off for the last thirty five years,
and I can't imagine it happening on a legal basis.
(13:15):
They have no legal basis whatsoever. But on a common
sense basis, it would destroy America.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
The Supreme Court accommodated Trump, as the conservative majority has
in almost all of the emergency cases filed since January.
It's set a lightning fast timetable by the Court standards
with arguments in November. The appeal will test the conservative
controlled court. It will be the first time during Trump's
(13:43):
second term that the justices will actually hear arguments, get
full briefings, and then weigh the underlying legal merits of
an administration policy. Joining me is David Townshend, a partner
in Dorsey and Whitney's international trade group. Dave, the Court
has set an unusually aggressive schedule for the court. When
(14:06):
do you think we'll get a decision?
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Hard to know. The Supreme Court, you can move at
its own case. The schedule that was agreed to had
been proposed by the United States and its appeal from
the Federal Circuit decision, and was not opposed and actually
supported by the plaintiffs in the case. Who are US
(14:28):
importers and alleged that the tariffs are unlawful in terms
of schedule. I suppose because they did establish expedited briefing.
We have the hearing in November. If the Supreme Court
wanted to move very quickly, it could issue something before
the end of the year. It's also possible that this
will go well into twenty twenty six before we actually
(14:49):
have an opinion.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
The Federal Circuit ruled seven to four that AIPA, the
International Emergency Economic Powers Act, doesn't authorize the these tariffs.
Explain how the Federal Circuit came to that conclusion.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Yeah, the Federal Circuit had said that the case is
really a statutory interpretation case, at least in terms of
the opinion issued by the Federal Circuit. Federal Circuit was
looking at whether the International Emergency Economic Powers Actor AIPA
authorizes the teriffs that the Trump administration has imposed on
global sources, including for trade deficits as well as fentanyl
(15:29):
related tariffs under a EPA, and the Federal Circuit said
that it didn't think AEPA did authorize the teriffs that
the Trump administration imposed and held them all awful. The
Federal story it looked to a couple different sources to
support its conclusion. There's quite a bit of discussion in
(15:49):
the opinion about other areas of US trade law, areas
where Congress had used words explicitly allowing the imposition or
adjustment of tariffs or duties. When the Federal cirgut noted
that AEPA doesn't use the word duties or tariffs in
it it allows the regulation of importation into the United States.
(16:12):
But in light of the absence of the words tariffs
or duties, but all sergu found that they did not
think Congress intended that AEPA allowed the imposition of global
tariffs in the way the Trump administration had done. They
also pointed out that as a constitutional matter, the power
to impose duties under Article one resides with Congress, and
(16:34):
they use that as a way to interpret AEPA as
inconsistent with what the Trump administration had done. And they
also noted that no prior president had used AIPA to
impose tariffs.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
So it sounds like the majority sort of took the
safe route, the conservative route in their analysis, although there
were dissenting judges.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Yeah, I mean, the federal circuit fractured seven to four.
As you said, there were some of the judges on
the Federal Circuit who said that ap but never allows tariffs.
The majority opinion didn't quite go that far, and then
the descent said that they do think AIPA is intended
to allow the president to impose the kind of tarifs
(17:19):
and adjust the tariffs in the way the Trump administration has.
I mean, I think that the majority opinion really sticks
to this as a statutory interpretation question at its core,
rather than looking to the constitutional issues such as a
non delegation doctrine that decide the case.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
What's the key argument that the Trump administration is making here?
Does it focus on that provision in AEPA that says
that the president can regulate the importation of property to
address an emergency?
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Yeah? Right. The AYEPA text allows the president to take
action to regulate the importation of items into the United States.
And the Trump administration's core argument is that the power
to regulate encompasses the power to impose taxes and duties
such as they've done here. And as support for that,
(18:13):
they note that the AEPA statute itself allows a variety
of actions. It allows broad discretion to the president to
prohibit importation of items into the United States. It allows
the president to prohibit transactions with certain countries. There are
certain persons in non US locations, and so if it
(18:36):
allows the prohibition of transactions or the prohibition of imports,
and also allows the regulation of imports, then, according to
the Trump administration, follows that they can impose taxes or
duties or something short of such prohibitions, including the terrorf
regime that the Trump administration is currently administering under AEPA
(18:57):
and using as a basis to negotiate trade agreements with
other countries.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Of course, no one knows how the Supreme Court will rule,
but Bloomberg Intelligence has determined there is a sixty percent
chance that the justices will agree that the reciprocal tariffs
are illegal because the trade deficit isn't an emergency. But
we'll find that the fentanyl tariffs are lawful and reinstate them.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
What do you think, Yeah, it's possible that the Supreme
Court could do something like that, And certainly the ultimate
outcome in terms of what the Supreme Court issues as
any remedy should it find the IPA terrifs or unlawful,
is wide open and difficult to predict. I think that
the initial statutory question, does AEPA allow the imposition of
(19:48):
tariffs is one question, and the Supreme Court could say
something like, yes, we think APA can permit tariffs. And
in fact, there's a lengthy discussion in the Federal Circuit
opinion about a prior court case called Yoshida, where an
appellate court had looked at exactly that issue under the
APA predecessor statute called the Trading with the Enemy Act.
(20:09):
So there's the question, does APO out tariffs? They could
answer that yes, it does, but they could also say
something to the effect of the executive orders issued here
in some manner go beyond what we think AYIPA was
intended to permit, especially if the Supreme Court thinks that's
wide open into discretionary and how the administration is adjusting
(20:30):
the tariffs. I'm not sure I would say that I
think that outcome is likely, but it does show you
that there are various steps of the analysis that the
Supreme Court could use to ultimately reach the outcoming conclusion
in the case.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
No present before has tried to use AIPA to impose tariffs,
but has the Court addressed anything similar in the past.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Yeah, the Supreme Court has looked at AIPA before. For example,
there was a prior case involved the Iranian hostages that
were taken during the Iranian Revolution. The United States citizens
who were held hostage in Iran, and the President had
used AIPA as a basis to negotiate a process for
(21:15):
the hostages to be released, but also for the resolution
of claims against Iran that arose out of the revolution,
where's people's property had been seized or taken. And so
the Supreme Court was forced in that case to look
at whether AEPA allowed the president to essentially nullify court
cases that were ongoing and property that had been sees
(21:38):
pursued to those court cases. And in that case, the
Supreme Court said that AIPA is a broad grant of power.
It is designed to allow the president to negotiate and
thus would allow the president to freeze or exterminate claims
in US courts relating to the Iranian Revolution. I mean,
(21:58):
you know, whether that has a bearing on the issue
before the Court now relating to tariffs and the Trump
administration executive order is sort of unclear. It's it's not
hard to distinguish between the situation the Supreme Court looked
at there and the one before the Court today.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Could the Major Questions doctrine come into play because that
stopped Biden from his student loan program.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
The Federal Circuit said, yes, that the Major Questions doctrine
is relevant here. They noted the vast what they called
economics and political significance of the case, and the Federal
Circuit found that countfuls for a narrower view of what
Congress intended in enacting AEPA, especially given that the President
(22:46):
had never previously used AIPA as a basis for the
imposition of tariff. Whether that is the path that the
Supreme Court ultimately uses to resolve the case very difficult
to predict. And at the Federal turget it did not
think the Major Questions doctrine prohibited the executive orders and
(23:06):
the imposition of tariffs here, both the reciprocal and the
fentanyl related tariffs. So you know, you can dig both sides.
Whether the Supreme Court will be persuaded that that doctrine
applies is unclear.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
Coming up next on the Bloomberg Law Show, I'll continue
this conversation with Dave Townsend. How is all this uncertainty
about the tariffs affecting companies? I'm June Grasso, and you're
listening to Bloomberg.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
But some whack job put in a lawsuit. It went
before a very liberal court, and the liberal court ruled
who was eleven? They ruled seven to four, with one
of the most liberal of them all voting in our favor.
Because they're patriots. I think I give tremendous credit to
that judge. And now it's going to the Supreme Court.
(24:00):
We're going to be asking for early admittance. But some
whack job put in a lawsuit. It went before a
very liberal court, and the liberal court ruled was eleven.
They've ruled seven to four, with one of the most
liberal of them all voting in our favor because they're patriots.
(24:20):
I think I give tremendous credit to that judge. And
now it's going to the Supreme Court.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
The Supreme Court has agreed to take up an appeal
from the Trump administration after lower courts found most of
his tariffs illegal. The case involves two sets of import taxes,
both of which Trump justified by declaring a national emergency.
The challenged taxes include Trump's April second Liberation Day tariffs,
(24:47):
which impose levies of ten to fifty percent on most
US imports, depending on the country they come from, and
also tariff's Trump imposed on Canada, Mexico, and China in
the name of addressing fentanyl trafficking. The cases were brought
by Democratic led states and a group of small businesses.
(25:08):
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled
that Trump exceeded his authority by invoking an emergency law
AIPA to hit nations across the globe with steep tariffs,
upholding an earlier ruling by the Court of International Trade.
I've been talking to Dave Townshend of Dorsey and Whitney. Dave,
(25:29):
let's say that the Supreme Court rules against the tariffs
across the board. I mean, what happens then the government
has to refund money? How would it work?
Speaker 1 (25:39):
There are several different avenues of relief that could come
out of the Supreme Court case here, and obviously we
don't know until the Supreme Court actually rules on it.
The Court of International Trade, the lower court at originally
issued relief at the all importers that had said if
it's illegal, as to the plaintiffs, that's the illegal as
(25:59):
to all and if directed the government to cease collecting
the reciprocal and sentinel related tariff under APA. The Federal
Circuit stepped in and paused the effect of that part
of this cit ruling, and in its August twenty ninth rolling,
the Federal Circuit agreed largely with the Court of International
Trade out of the outcome of the case, that is,
(26:20):
the IPA terriffs were held unlawful, but it again stayed
its decision and impact pending appeals at the Supreme Court.
So that's just a long way of saying the original
look at this from the Court of International Trades that
the relief should apply to everybody, should apply to all importers.
The Federal Circuit did note that this Court of International
(26:43):
Trades failed to look at whether such a nationwide remedy
was appropriate in light of a Supreme Court case recently issued.
That case was dealing with birthright citizenship. So the Federal
Circuit was saying to the Court of International Trade, you
have to look at this intervening case to see whether
it would be appropriate for a nationwide revenue. There are
(27:08):
under trade other avenues for relief here for companies looking
to recoup the revenue. One would be to bring their
own court case. Another would be to pursue protests against
the US Customs in due course as the import entries
go through the normal process of review, liquidation, and finalization
by US Customs. So we don't know. I mean, I
(27:29):
think ultimately there could be an administrative process established here
if there were a ruling against the United States that
would allow importers to come back and prove they were
owed money. It's also possible that there won't be a
process and that companies will just be forced to go
through the usual court or administrative processes.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Does the Supreme Court consider on any level the difficult
process of unwinding the tariffs?
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Yeah, I think the Supreme Court has in other circumstances
that you know, it's concerned about accepting arguments in favor
of plaintiffs that would cause a painful unwinding process for
the US government. Whether that has much, if any of
an impact here is hard to say. I think that
(28:19):
you know, from my perspective as an attorney who who
advises US importers and is familiar with the importation process,
there is an automated process by which these AEPA teriffs
are imposed, and that automated process creates the data the
government needs to identify and refund the tariffs. So I'm
(28:42):
not ultimately convinced that the process of refunding the tariffs
would just be so hopelessly complicated that the government couldn't
do it. And I'll just give you one example of
why that is, the government in the ordinary course does
not liquidate import entries for roughly ten months until the
data endoration, and so you can go all the way
(29:02):
back to import entries in April when the reciprocal tariffs
are originally imposed, and those entries are not yet finalized
by customs. So there is sort of a way for
the government to easily track and then refund the duties
if they had to, although the scale of it would
be massive, obviously.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
And so as far as you know businesses or importers
that you represent, what does this period of uncertainty until
the Supreme Court rules, what does it do to them?
Speaker 1 (29:34):
In the meantime, everyone's paying the tariffs, and so I
think companies are still trying to assess what the likelihood
is that there could be refunds here I can tell
you that companies, and we've seen this in the news
and listeners have probably seen it in retail stores where
(29:56):
prices have gone up in certain cases, or contracts have
been revised in a way to permit companies to raise
prices as a result of the tariffs, and all of
that would all of a sudden be called into question
if the Supreme Court ultimately ruled that the tariffs were illegal. Though,
(30:17):
whether there would be a rollback or reductions of price
as a result of the case and or because of
refunds received by importers. I think that would be different
potentially in different industries and in different market situations. But
you know, I can tell you that there have already
been adjustments, and so how quickly things would snap back
(30:38):
that would be something that businesses would have to I
think consider on a case by case basis.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
Is there anything else that businesses are considering in light
of these tariffs.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Well, I think the way the tariffs were imposed, companies
could see them coming. They built up inventories in the
first quarter of the year. Those inventories that most been
drawn down in such a way that now they're having
and have been recently having to make tough decisions on
the pricing and whether they're passing on the terraffs. You know,
(31:10):
in terms of looking forward, I think companies are balancing
whether to wait and see whether the terrorifts are ultimately
upheld or whether they just take the action they feel
that it is appropriate.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Now.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
I mean, I would say this about what the ultimate
impact of the Supreme Court case is. If they were
to find that the tariffs were unlawful and strike them down.
The Trump administration isn't just going to give up. There
will be a second, you know, a plan B so
to speak, that probably is already prepared that would be
imposed very quickly, is what I suspect. And so it's
(31:50):
not as though if the Supreme Court issues are ruling
against the United States, it's not as though the teriffts
will just be gone. There will be something coming down
the pipeline, probably fairly quickly to impose something similar.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
Yeah, Administration officials have basically downplayed the impact of the
litigation and said that most of the terriffs can be
imposed by other legal avenues. I mean, what would that
be and why didn't they use it in the first place.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
I think the administration chose to use IEPA because it
was they knew they could do it quickly and immediately,
and they wanted to begin the process of negotiating trade
agreements as fast as possible because it's a lengthy process
to negotiate trade agreements. There are a variety of other
legal authorities the administration could use if they needed to
(32:40):
replace the IEPA TIFFs. I would expect a combination of
authorities would be used. Something immediate that allows them to
impose tariffs right away, coupled with some combination of Section
two thirty two, which is national security related tariffs and
three oh one, what's their teriffs to address on SAT
trading practices like the kind of Trump administration imposed on
(33:02):
China in twenty eighteen, And so they would be able
to cobble together something that looks at least somewhat similar
to the current regime in terms of the ultimate impact
and the ultimate size of the tariffs.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
If these tariffs are upheld, how much of a victory
would that be for Trump and how much would it
bolster presidential power?
Speaker 1 (33:27):
It would be significant, no doubt, because what that would
do in the most immediate terms, Obviously, the executive orders
would remain the IPA teriffs would remain. I think the
Trump administration would be likely to view that as a
signal that they can use their AEPA authority to adjust
up or down as they see fit the tariff rates
(33:48):
for countries, and they would be emboldened to continue the
course of potentially raising tariffs on countries that take actions
they don't like and lowering them for countries that agree to,
you know, whatever trade concessions they're hoping to get out
of those countries. So I think that process would just
continue and it would be fully legal looking forward.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
Thanks for joining me, Dave. That's David Townsend, a partner
in Dorsey and Whitney's International Trade Group. And that's it
for this edition of the Bloomberg Law Show. Remember you
can always get the latest legal news on our Bloomberg
Law podcasts. You can find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
and at www dot Bloomberg dot com, slash podcast Slash Law,
(34:31):
and remember to tune into The Bloomberg Law Show every
weeknight at ten pm Wall Street Time. I'm Jim Grosso,
and you're listening to Bloomberg
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