Wisconsin joined 24 other states on Monday in suing the Trump administration over its latest tariffs, saying the new import taxes are a rerun of penalties the Supreme Court already struck down. The lawsuit targets double-digit tariffs the United States imposed last month on 59 countries and the European Union.
The filing lands now because those tariffs took effect as the clock ran out on a separate set of temporary 10% worldwide tariffs that expired at midnight on July 24. President Donald Trump had used those temporary duties after the Supreme Court ruled that the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, did not authorize tariffs and forced the administration to send refunds to importers who had already paid them.
New York Attorney General Letitia James, one of the leaders behind the suit, said, “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.” The states argue that the latest round is not a new trade policy at all, but a substitute for the import taxes the court rejected in February.
The White House says the administration is acting within the law and using Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 to respond to forced labor in global supply chains. Kush Desai said the government is using its lawful authority to eliminate unreasonable acts that burden U.S. commerce, and said a foreign country’s failure to block goods produced with forced labor is unreasonable and must be addressed. Those forced-labor tariffs range from 10% to 12.5% and apply to countries that supply 99% of American imports.
That defense sets up the central fight in the case. The states say the forced-labor explanation is a pretext, while the administration says it is a lawful response to commerce abuses. Wisconsin has not said in the filing what specific tariff harm it faces, but its decision to join the case puts it squarely in a broader legal battle over Trump’s tariff authority after the court took away the tool he first used.
The lawsuit follows two other suits filed in the Court of International Trade in July by small businesses challenging the same Section 301 tariffs. For now, the new case adds more pressure on an administration that has already had to shift tariff strategies once before, and the next question is whether the courts will treat these duties as a fresh legal footing or as the same policy in different packaging.
