On "Forbes Newsroom," Ilya Somin, a legal scholar and attorney, discussed his and the Liberty Justice Center's lawsuit against the Trump Administration which aims to end the President's tariffs, and shared a timeline of when a preliminary injunction, if granted by a judge, might block them.
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00:00So I do want to discuss the timeline because April 2nd, that's when Liberation Day was,
00:04as President Trump described it. He unveiled his tariff plan. April 9th, he largely paused
00:11the reciprocal tariffs. There's still that baseline 10% on most nations, and he has since
00:16ratcheted up the trade war with China. You filed the lawsuit earlier this week. So can you discuss
00:23where that lawsuit is now and what are the next steps? The lawsuit is before the Court of
00:28International Trade. Within the next few days, we will file a motion for remedies. We are going to
00:34most likely seek a preliminary injunction, which would prevent the tariffs from being implemented
00:40while the case continues. We might also file for a temporary restraining order, which would impose
00:46that constraint even faster. It obviously will be up to the court to determine whether they do that
00:51or not. We think as a matter of text and history and the meaning of the Constitution, we have an
00:56open and check case. It's very strong. Obviously, they might be able to sort of try to get the
01:03courts to ignore the text and say, well, you should defer to the executive anyway, but we hope to
01:08persuade the court that that would be a very dangerous path. It would be enormous and harmful
01:12concentration of power. It's totally at odds with the text of the Constitution and of the law and would
01:19create lots of practical problems, such as that one man could start a trade war with any country at
01:24any time, whatever he feels like, which is totally contrary to what the founding fathers wanted in a
01:30separation of power system and also would be extremely dangerous to the U.S. and world economies.
01:37So it's possible that if we're successful, we would be able to get a judicial ruling that would block
01:43implementation of these tariffs quickly. But it's also possible that there will be many months before
01:48there is a complete resolution to the case. I won't lie to you about that.
01:53Let's talk about that a little more because at Forbes, we've talked to small businesses that these
01:57tariffs will impact and the impacts will be devastating. You're representing a couple of
02:02companies where they're saying these tariffs will absolutely devastate our business. If you file the
02:08preliminary injunction, would that immediately stop the tariffs? What does the timeline look there?
02:16When would that take effect? A lot depends on the discretion of the court. So people listening,
02:22I cannot promise you that we're going to get you immediate relief tomorrow. We would like to do it
02:27as fast as possible, but obviously it's in the hands of the court rather than in my hands or that
02:31of our clients. But we will seek a preliminary injunction and possibly a temporary restraining
02:37order. If we are successful, one or both could be issued within the next few weeks even or even
02:44sooner than that. But obviously we can't be certain ahead of time that we will be. Also, there might be
02:49a question about sort of what's the scope of the injunction. We would seek a so-called nationwide
02:53injunction that would shut down the entire system of Liberation Day tariffs. But it's possible that a
03:00court could decide to grant a more limited injunction that's more focused on particular industries or
03:05trade with particular countries and the like. We think we have good reasons why the injunction should
03:11be universal in scope and not just limited in that way. But courts do have considerable discretion
03:17in how they grant injunctions and what their scope is.