A New Jersey food business and civil liberties group filed a lawsuit Thursday in the US Court of International Trade challenging President Trump's 50% tariffs on Canadian goods, arguing the White House exceeded its constitutional authority to impose the duties without congressional approval.
The Liberty Justice Center filed the suit on behalf of Gellert Global Group, a third-generation family business that imports cheese from Canada. The lawsuit seeks to block tariff collection and order refunds with interest for affected importers.
Trump imposed the 50% levy on approximately $20 billion of Canadian goods after trade talks between the US and Canada broke down in August 2026, according to BBC News. The tariffs covered wine, dairy products and hockey sticks.
How the tariffs are hurting one family business
Gellert Global Group pays 50% tariffs on cheese it exports from Canada and faces retaliatory tariffs from Canada on American-made cheese it sells there. Thomas Gellert, co-chief executive of the firm, said the duties disrupted business relationships his family had built over generations.
"These tariffs disrupt those relationships overnight and create costs and uncertainty that ripple through the entire supply chain," Gellert said, according to BBC News.
What legal authority is the White House using?
The Trump administration relied on Section 338 of the 1930 Tariff Act, a provision aimed at protecting US business against foreign discrimination. The Liberty Justice Center argues the statute does not allow the executive branch to impose sweeping tariffs whenever a trade dispute arises.
The lawsuit points to a procedural violation: Section 338 requires a 30-day waiting period before tariffs can take effect, but the tariff on cheese was added to the list just a week before collection began, BBC News reported.
The Liberty Justice Center also contends that Section 338 has been superseded by Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which contains different limits on executive power.
Can the president impose tariffs without Congress?
Sara Albrecht, chief executive of the Liberty Justice Center, said the case challenges a fundamental question about presidential power. "The Constitution gives tariff power to Congress. The executive branch cannot keep moving the same policy from one statute to another and pretend the limits disappear," Albrecht said, according to BBC News.
The Liberty Justice Center framed the dispute as a question of authority, not opposition to tariffs themselves. "The case is not an objection to tariffs as such. It asks who has the power to impose them and whether the executive branch followed the law Congress wrote," the group said, according to BBC News.
Albrecht added: "No president should have the power to pull a dormant statute off the shelf and use it to impose sweeping tariffs or import bans without the limits Congress required," BBC News reported.
The group's track record against Trump tariffs
This is the fourth lawsuit the Liberty Justice Center has filed against Trump's tariff policies. The group successfully sued over tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act in February 2026, when a court struck down those duties, BBC News reported.
The Liberty Justice Center has filed a motion for a preliminary injunction to block collection of the Canadian tariffs while the case proceeds. The motion will test whether the court believes the business has a strong enough legal claim to warrant stopping the tariffs before a final ruling on the merits.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney matched the Section 338 US tariffs "dollar for dollar" last month after Trump imposed them, according to BBC News, escalating the trade dispute between the two countries.