25 states sue Trump administration over Section 301 tariffs

Twenty-five states sued the Trump administration on Aug. 3 over tariffs of 10% and 12.5% imposed on goods from 60 trading partners. The 25 states sue Trump tariffs case, filed in the U.S. Court of International Trade, seeks to halt the duties, have them declared unlawful and obtain refunds of duties paid by the states, according to CNBC.

The measures cover most goods from the affected economies, which the states say account for 99.4% of U.S. imports. They include 59 countries and the European Union, according to reporting by the Associated Press and the New York attorney general’s office.

The plaintiffs are New York, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.

Why are 25 states suing over Trump’s Section 301 tariffs?

The states contend that the administration misapplied Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, the authority used for the latest tariffs. Their complaint alleges that the U.S. Trade Representative did not carry out the country-specific investigations and consultations required by the law, and did not show that the near-uniform tariff rates were tailored to remedy the alleged practices in each economy, CNBC reported.

Section 301 permits trade action following an investigation into foreign practices found to burden U.S. commerce. In this instance, the administration said the targeted economies had failed to prohibit and effectively enforce bans on goods produced with forced labor entering their supply chains.

New York Attorney General Letitia James said the new duties were an unlawful effort to raise costs for households and businesses after the administration lost a Supreme Court case over earlier tariffs. That Supreme Court ruling concerned tariffs issued under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, rather than Section 301, the Associated Press reported.

What is the administration’s response?

White House spokesperson Kush Desai rejected the states’ account. He said the United States was using lawful authority to eliminate foreign acts, policies and practices that burden U.S. commerce. A country’s failure to enforce a prohibition on forced-labor imports harms American workers and must be addressed, Desai said, according to CNBC.

Desai also said Section 301 tariffs had proved legally durable since Trump’s first term. The provision was previously used for tariffs on Chinese imports, which survived court challenges, according to the Associated Press.

The litigation follows a compressed policy sequence. The administration initiated Section 301 investigations in March, announced the duties on July 23 and put them into effect late in July, according to the New York attorney general’s office. The announcement came a day before temporary tariffs imposed under a separate provision, Section 122, were due to expire, CNBC reported.

Two small-business lawsuits challenging the same Section 301 tariffs were filed in July. This state case is also separate from a 2025 multistate action over tariffs imposed under IEEPA. The central issue in the new dispute is whether officials complied with Section 301’s procedural and tailoring requirements, rather than whether the statute can ever support tariff action.

This story draws on original reporting from PYMNTS.