Rising consumer prices are expected to go higher under Donald Trump’s new round of tariffs, triggering another lawsuit by New York and 24 other states, claiming the tariffs are “illegal.”
New York Attorney General Letitia James and Governor Kathy Hochul yesterday announced that New York had joined the coalition to block Trump’s illegal tariffs on dozens of countries.
US tariffs have changed more than 50 times under Trump, according to the conservative Tax Foundation.
In 2025, Trump tariffs amounted to an average tax increase of $1,000 per US household. New tariffs, both announced and imposed, including the new tariff on Canada, will increase taxes per US household by $900 in 2026, according to the foundation.
An 11-member state coalition first sued the Trump administration in April, 2025, resulting in a landmark 6-3 Supreme Court decision. The court struck down sweeping tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).
The Court of International Trade also struck down tariffs imposed under Section 122 of the Trade Act, forcing the administration to refund billions of dollars to mostly U.S. businesses.
“After losing at the Supreme Court, the administration is once again trying to illegally raise taxes on families and businesses with a new round of tariffs,” said James.
“No matter how the administration tries to justify it, the law and our Constitution are clear that the president does not have the power to impose sweeping tariffs on whatever countries he wants.”
Trump imposed his latest tariffs in March on 59 countries and the European Union (EU) under Section 301 of the Trade Act, allegedly to investigate forced labor in world trade. The move came one day after previous tariffs were set to expire.
The lawsuit argues that this is a pretext for imposing the same sweeping tariffs the administration has repeatedly tried and failed to enact.
The administration has violated the law by failing to follow Section 301’s requirements for imposing tariffs and implementing new tariffs without any clear connection to their stated goal of combatting forced labor practices.
“President Trump’s illegal tariffs are nothing more than a tax on hardworking families, driving up the cost of groceries, household essentials, building materials, and countless everyday goods that New Yorkers rely on,” said Hochul in a statement.
Trump has imposed the tariffs are arbitrarily with little connection to the administration’s stated goal of combatting forced labor, the lawsuit argues.
A previous investigation into Brazil for its digital trade, tariff, and anti-corruption enforcement policies, which resulted in a tariff proposal in June 2018, took nearly a year. A similar investigation into China lasted more than eight months.
In this case, the administration claims to have investigated the policies and economies of 60 trading partners in less than three months in order to justify its tariffs.
The lawsuit also asserts that the administration has violated the Administrative Procedure Act.
The administration failed to conduct a meaningful investigation or engage substantively with testimony and comments submitted, and then arbitrarily applied across-the-board tariffs to a sweeping range of countries and products with no meaningful explanation for how the tariff rates would combat forced labor.
The lawsuit also argues that USTR’s authority under Section 301 is limited to specific circumstances and subject to rigorous procedural requirements, and that Congress has only delegated limited tariff authority to the executive branch. Attorney General James and Governor Hochul seek a court order declaring the tariffs illegal.
Joining Attorney General James and Governor Hochul in filing this lawsuit are the attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Virginia, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin, along with the governors of Kentucky and Pennsylvania.
Keith Girard has four decades of experience as an award-winning reporter, editor-in-chief, and senior media executive. Keith’s career began in Washington, D.C., where he was a reporter for The Washington Post and a contributing editor for Regardie’s and Washingtonian magazines. He also worked as a writer/producer in CNN’s Washington Bureau and has written non-fiction books on the U.S. Marines in the Gulf War and Donald Trump and two novels, “The Heidelberg Conundrum” and “The Curse of Northam Bay.”
