25 States Sue Trump Administration Over Tariffs on 60 Trading Partners
The legal challenge tests whether the executive branch can reimpose broad import duties after the Supreme Court struck down a prior tariff framework in February 2026.
A coalition of 25 U.S. states filed suit Monday against the Trump administration in the U.S. Court of International Trade, seeking to halt tariffs of 10% to 12.5% applied to goods from 60 trading partners, according to The Guardian's reporting on the complaint. The states allege the tariffs are an unlawful substitute for import taxes the Supreme Court invalidated in February 2026. The court filing is the primary public record establishing the states' legal standing and the specific relief sought.
The plaintiff states are asking the Court of International Trade for three forms of relief: an injunction halting collection of the tariffs, a declaratory judgment that the tariffs are unlawful, and an order requiring refunds of duties already paid by importers, according to the complaint as described in The Guardian's account. The 60 trading partners named in the tariff action include 59 individual countries and the European Union, per the same report.
The legal theory advanced by the states centers on the argument that the administration used trade-related statutory authority as a pretext to reconstruct tariffs whose legal basis the Supreme Court had already rejected, according to the Guardian account of the complaint. The specific statutory authority cited by the administration in imposing the new tariffs — and the precise Supreme Court ruling being referenced — are not fully detailed in available source material; the full text of the complaint filed with the Court of International Trade would contain both.
The U.S. Court of International Trade, a federal court based in New York, has jurisdiction over civil actions arising from U.S. customs and international trade law, including challenges to executive tariff actions. The court has previously issued injunctions against executive trade measures pending legal review, though the outcome of any such motion in this case is unknown at this time.
Several facts remain unresolved in available public records: the names of all 25 plaintiff states have not been confirmed in the sourced material; the administration has not publicly responded to the complaint as of the reporting date; and the timeline for any preliminary injunction hearing has not been announced. The full complaint, docketed at the U.S. Court of International Trade, would disclose the complete list of plaintiff states, the specific statutory provisions at issue, and the administration's tariff proclamation numbers. The Supreme Court opinion from February 2026 cited by the states would identify the constitutional or statutory basis on which the prior tariffs were invalidated.