The decision was made by the court with the numbers 7–4, and means that the law that Trump invoked when he granted his most extensive tariffs actually does not give him the authority to introduce them.
The federal court also gives room for the government to keep the tariffs until mid-October to allow for an appeal.
Donald Trump is critical of the court's decision and claims that the Supreme Court would have ruled in his favor.
"Today, a highly partisan appeals court has wrongly decided that our tariffs should be abolished, but they know that the US will win in the end. If these tariffs were ever abolished, it would be a total disaster for the country. It would weaken us economically, and we must be strong," the president claims on Truth Social.
At the core, the case is about whether the president has misused a law that gives him special powers in economic emergencies, and whether the US trade balance can be described as such.
In the forefront of the legal resistance to the tariffs – which Trump has largely introduced with the help of the law – is a group of small businesses and a coalition of democratically-led states.
Corrected: In an earlier version of the text, there was an incorrect formulation of how the court decision was made.
