Jackson cites Locke research in touting AGs’ lawsuit against tariffs

North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson cited John Locke Foundation research this month as he touted a new multistate lawsuit challenging federal tariffs.

Jackson signed on to the March 5 suit filed by 22 state attorneys general and two Democratic governors. The state of Oregon serves as lead plaintiff.

The complaint filed in the US Court of International Trade seeks a declaration that so-called “Section 122” tariffs are illegal. The states also seek refunds.

President Donald Trump imposed 10% tariffs in February based on Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. The tariffs could rise to 15%. Section 122 tariffs were designed to replace tariffs issued under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The US Supreme Court invalidated those tariffs last month.

The new tariffs could cost North Carolina households $800 to $1,300 this year, according to an estimate from Jackson’s office.

“North Carolinians have already paid billions in unlawful tariffs — our farmers, our manufacturers, and our communities can’t bear more,” Jackson said in a news release. “I’m taking the federal government to court because they broke the law again, they harmed North Carolinians, and I can prove it.”

“These new 15 percent tariffs would apply to an estimated $1.2 trillion worth of annual imports nationally,” according to Jackson’s news release. “North Carolina’s agriculture industry could take an especially hard hit. The John Locke Foundation estimated that North Carolina’s farming industry and rural economy would lose about $1.9 billion and 8,000 jobs because of the IEEPA tariffs. The new tariffs threaten similar pain to our rural economy if other countries maintain retaliatory tariffs.”

The attorney general references “How Tariffs Threaten North Carolina Agriculture: NC Farmers At Risk,” a January Locke report authored by Jeffrey Dorfman, professor of agricultural and resource economics at North Carolina State University.

“Contrary to the purpose and limited delegation of Section 122, President Trump has invoked this statute to impose immense and ever-changing tariffs on whatever goods entering the United States he chooses and for whatever reasons he finds convenient,” according to the states’ lawsuit. “As with his unlawful use of IEEPA, the President has once again exercised tariff authority that he does not have — involving a statute that does not authorize the tariffs he has imposed — to upend the constitutional order and bring chaos to the global economy.”

“Section 122 exists to permit a limited tariff authority to address ‘fundamental international payments problems’ that require ‘special import measures to restrict imports’ to deal with ‘large and serious balance-of-payments deficits,’ among other things,” the suit continued. “Here, the President has invoked as justification a purported ‘balance-of-payments’ deficit.”

“The President’s purported justification is fatally flawed,” the states argued. “First, the President is contorting the term ‘balance of payments,’ redefining it contrary to its meaning and cherry-picking only the negative components that make up the balance of payments, while ignoring entirely the huge net positive financial inflow components that also make up the balance of payments.”

“Second, a balance of payments crisis is a currency crisis that was of great concern when Congress enacted Section 122, but which can no longer exist following the formal end of the fixed-rate currency exchange system in 1976,” the lawsuit added. “For these reasons, the President cannot meet the statutory requirements of Section 122, and his effort to impose tariffs under this statute is unlawful.”

“Jackson cites Locke research in touting AGs’ lawsuit against tariffs” was originally published on www.carolinajournal.com.