In summary
Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta announced the lawsuit Wednesday, saying the tariffs hurt “states, consumers and businesses.”
With the state budget hanging precariously in the balance, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced today that California will sue to block President Donald Trump’s tariff powers.
The lawsuit, which Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta plan to file in federal court this morning, argues that Trump does not have the constitutional authority to unilaterally enact tariffs. Trump cited the United States’ large trade deficit to declare a national emergency earlier this month and impose sweeping tariffs on the rest of the world.
“President Trump’s unlawful tariffs are wreaking chaos on California families, businesses, and our economy — driving up prices and threatening jobs,” Newsom said in a statement. “We’re standing up for American families who can’t afford to let the chaos continue.”
In a matter of days in early April, Trump invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 to establish a universal 10% tariff on all countries importing goods to the United States, with even higher reciprocal tariffs on some nations, then abruptly reversed course hours after they took effect, pausing most of the reciprocal tariffs while ratcheting up the import tax on China to 145%.
The chaos tanked the stock market, a huge risk for California’s forthcoming budget, which depends disproportionately on income tax revenue from capital gains earned by the wealthiest taxpayers. The state is also particularly vulnerable to other economic pain from the tariffs, because China is California’s largest trading partner, propping up manufacturing, agriculture, tourism and major ports in Los Angeles, Long Beach and Oakland.
Other major potential impacts for California include driving up the cost of construction materials just as Los Angeles begins rebuilding from a series of devastating fires that flattened several neighborhoods in January.
In their lawsuit, to be filed in the U.S. District Court in San Francisco, Newsom and Bonta will ask a judge to immediately pause Trump’s tariffs.
The state contends that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act specifies many remedies a president can take in response to a foreign economic threat, but tariffs are not among them. Without this specific authorization from Congress, the lawsuit will argue, Trump’s actions are “unlawful and unprecedented.”
“The President’s chaotic and haphazard implementation of tariffs is not only deeply troubling, it’s illegal,” Bonta said in a statement. “As the fifth largest economy in the world, California understands global trade policy is not just a game.”
The lawsuit continues Newsom’s shift back toward a more aggressively confrontational stance against the Trump administration. After the Los Angeles wildfires, the governor sought to reset his relationship with Trump as he lobbied for federal disaster aid.
But even though Congress has yet to approve any further assistance for Los Angeles, Newsom has begun more vocally opposing the president’s economic policies in recent weeks. In the wake of Trump’s tariffs announcement earlier this month, Newsom said California would pursue its own “strategic partnerships” on international trade.
