What is the Court of International Trade, which ruled against Trump’s tariffs?

A court that few Americans had heard of placed a roadblock in front of President Donald Trump’s far-reaching tariff policy May 28, ruling that the president did not have the authority to impose many of the tariffs he’s enacted against U.S. trading partners.

The following day, an appeals court allowed the administration to keep the tariffs in place while the substance of the presidential-powers dispute continued to play out in court.

The initial ruling, by the Court of International Trade, brought the low-profile judicial body to the world’s attention. The court’s panel of three judges unanimously sided with businesses and states that had challenged Trump’s action, ruling that the the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act Trump cited did not grant the president "unbounded authority" to enact tariffs.

The panel’s decision did not affect other Trump tariffs, such as those on steel, aluminum and cars, and the administration’s proposed tariffs on pharmaceuticals and semiconductors; Trump imposed these with other legal authorities.

Here is some background on the court that made the May 28 decision.

What is the Court of International Trade?

You might have guessed it from the name, but the Court of International Trade deals with cases about trade law. It is the descendant of the Board of General Appraisers, a body created within the Treasury Department in 1890. It became the U.S. Customs Court in 1926, then the Court of International Trade with passage of a law in 1980.

In 1890, tariffs were the main source of revenue for the U.S., and the court was "designed to specialize in international trade disputes, relieving the U.S. district and circuit courts of those burdens," said Ross Burkhart, a Boise State University political scientist who specializes in trade policy.

As tariffs became less important to the federal treasury during the 20th century, this court took a lower profile.

The New York-based Court of International Trade is one of several U.S. courts with narrow specialties; others handle cases involving veterans, the military and tax law. 

Who are the court’s judges? 

The court includes nine judges, plus additional judges with "senior status," which means they have a reduced caseload but can still hear cases. As with other federal judges, they are nominated by the president and confirmed by the U.S. Senate for lifetime appointments.

Some narrow cases are decided by a single judge, but ones with a more expansive legal impact are decided by three-judge panels.

The panel that decided the Trump tariff case was bipartisan: Timothy Reif is a nominee of Trump, a Republican; Jane Restani was nominated by Republican Ronald Reagan, and Gary Katzmann was nominated by Democrat Barack Obama.

"I find there to be no sense in which the court has partisan leanings," Burkhart said.

How do parties appeal the court’s verdicts?

If a party moves to appeal, the case goes to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington. After that, the next stop would be the Supreme Court.

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is the one that ruled May 29 that the tariffs could remain in place as the legal battle continues.

How unusual is the Trump tariff case for this court?

The Trump tariff case is unusual in one important way: It has received far more public attention than the court’s typical case. 

The court "is not often in the news, as its remit is relatively obscure," said Babson College economist Kent Jones.

While the court is "not low profile for trade practitioners, this case is one of the most well-covered in the news, given the breadth of the president's orders at issue," said Kathleen Claussen, a Georgetown University law professor and Institute for International Economic Law co-director. 

The constitutional scope of the case is the widest in the court’s recent history. More often, its cases "tend to focus on particular firms' disputes about customs duties," Burkhart said "This ruling is certainly the most important recent ruling by this body."