Trumps New Tariffs Get a Familiar Day in Court

Just hours after the Supreme Court struck down President Trump’s original roster of punishing global tariffs, he defiantly proclaimed that he would stop at nothing to somehow bring them back.Seven months later, the work to revive those duties is well underway.But their return has landed the administration back in the same federal courthouse in New York where its legal troubles first began.The latest phase of Mr.

Trump’s ever-evolving trade war rests in the familiar hands of a panel of federal judges, who on Wednesday heard the third major case in less than two years challenging the president’s ability to tax imports from around the world.Each of the fights has centered on different legal justifications, but the root cause remains the same: Mr.

Trump’s reliance on decades-old laws to issue duties that opponents see as a harmful overreach.This time, the legal wrangling concerned the use of Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which allows the administration to investigate unfair trade practices and impose tariffs if it finds that American businesses were harmed.In July, the government relied on the statute to impose tariffs on 86 countries at once, claiming that they had failed to stamp out “forced labor” and had put U.S.

firms that better protect workers at a competitive disadvantage.The expansive nature of the tariffs prompted state officials and small businesses to file a series of lawsuits, arguing that the Trump administration had failed to marshal the evidence required under law to justify the duties.Instead, the opponents framed the process as one motivated by politics and pretense, citing past statements from Mr.

Trump and his deputies promising to resurrect a set of policies that had already been declared illegal.Over roughly two hours on Wednesday, the Justice Department vigorously contested those claims, setting the stage for another high stakes decision from the Court of International Trade in downtown Manhattan.In an ominous sign for the...