Companies, consumers and countries have been paying close attention to United States President Donald Trump’s aggressive policy of imposing tariffs.Soon, the courts will weigh in on whether Trump has the power to levy those tariffs in the first place – a high-stakes legal battle that will either affirm a key pillar of Trump’s economic policy or cut it off at the knees.The US Constitution says Congress holds the power to impose tariffs, not the president. However, over the years, Congress has passed multiple laws ceding some of that power to the president.Trump has justified his most far-reaching assertions of tariff power by citing the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which allows tariffs on all imports during an “unusual and extraordinary threat … to the national security, foreign policy or economy of the United States”.Small businesses challenging that position in the case VOS Selections v Trump make two key arguments. They contend that the law doesn’t explicitly allow the president to impose tariffs. And they argue that neither of two Trump tariffs – the levies against Mexico, Canada and China to counter a declared fentanyl crisis and those against a broad swath of trading partners to address US trade deficits – rise to the level of an “unusual and extraordinary” emergency.On Thursday, one day before Trump’s deadline for a batch of n …
