Key points: A panel of judges at the federal International Trade Court in New York is hearing arguments against President Donald Trump's "Section 301" tariffs.

The backdrop to this new batch of tariffs is that the Supreme Court previously struck down Trump's last round of global tariffs, and another set of alternative tariffs expired.

The plaintiffs bringing the suit argue that the administration is essentially trying to reimpose global tariffs that a court had already ruled invalid.

On September 28, 2026, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S. President Donald Trump was answering questions from reporters.

Trump's near-universal tariff policy has once again come under legal challenge in federal court. A three-judge panel at the U.S. Court of International Trade in Manhattan heard arguments on Wednesday morning from a group of small businesses and Democratic-led states. The plaintiffs argue that Trump's sweeping tariff measures have exceeded the bounds of legal authority. In less than two years, this is already the third time the court has been asked to intervene to stop the president from imposing large-scale tariffs on the vast majority of U.S. imports.

This latest set of tariffs imposes rates of 10% or 12.5% on goods from 86 countries, covering 99.4% of U.S. import trade. The Trump administration says the tariffs are being imposed because the targeted countries have failed to effectively enforce bans on trade in forced-labor goods. But at the opening of Wednesday's hearing, lawyers for the plaintiffs said multiple pieces of evidence showed the government's stated rationale was merely a pretext, and that the real aim was to restore Trump's previous global tariff system.

Plaintiffs' lawyer Pratik Shah said: "We are very clear that forced labor is not the sole motivation for the government's action." A judge immediately pushed back: "So what?" She asked whether, even if the government had other policy motives, that alone would be enough to rule against the government. Shah responded that the government's move this time to impose similar tariffs on dozens of economies "all at once," with an investigation process that was rushed and superficial, represented an unprecedented use of Section 301 that did not comply with the statutory requirements. The lawyer specifically noted that the law requires the government to prove, one by one, that each country's trade practices are both unreasonable and harmful to U.S. commerce.

Shah told the panel: "It is precisely the lack of country-specific factual findings that violates the text of the law." The hearing began at 10 a.m. U.S. Eastern Time, and around 11 a.m. the judges announced a brief recess.

The trajectory of Trump's tariff policy

In March of this year, the Trump administration launched investigations into forced-labor practices abroad, shortly after the president's protectionist trade agenda suffered a major legal setback. In February, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Trump's "reciprocal tariffs" introduced in April 2025, a key part of his trade agenda; the ruling also forced the government to refund more than $100 billion in tariffs already collected. On the same day as the Supreme Court ruling, Trump announced a global 10% tariff under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. But that provision allows tariffs to remain in effect for only 150 days; within that 150-day period, the federal International Trade Court issued a ruling against the tariffs. An appeals court, however, granted a stay, allowing the tariffs to remain in place until they expired. In July, just as the Section 122 tariffs expired, the Trump administration introduced new tariffs under Section 301 of the same Trade Act of 1974. At the time, a senior Trump administration official told reporters that the move was "the strongest international labor rights action in U.S. and world history."

The lawsuit heard on Wednesday argues that the government used forced labor as a pretext in order to reimpose the global tariffs that had already been struck down by the courts. In a consolidated complaint filed in August, the plaintiffs wrote: "The defendants have already tried to use three completely different statutes to essentially replicate the same global tariff regime. And it is no coincidence that they did not choose Section 301 at the outset, only turning to it as a last resort when they had no other options." The plaintiffs include a group of small importing businesses as well as a coalition of 25 states, all of which are affected by the new Section 301 tariffs.

Lawyers for the U.S. Department of Justice maintain that the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative fully complied with the law. In a response brief filed in early September, the Justice Department said: "In this case, the measures taken by the Trade Representative at the president's direction fully conform to the text, legislative purpose, and legislative objectives of Section 301. At the same time, the action carries out the president's firm commitment: making the ability to effectively combat cross-border trade in forced-labor goods a condition for access to the U.S. market, thereby creating a fair competitive environment for American workers, producers, and exporters."

In late July, Trump said directly on Fox television that the Section 301 tariffs and the tariffs struck down by the Supreme Court were essentially the same thing. Sarah Albrecht, chairman and CEO of the public-interest law firm Center for Freedom and Justice, which brought the lawsuit, said at the time that Trump's remarks further corroborated the plaintiffs' claims.