Judges hear arguments over legality of new Trump administration tariffs
Judge’s gavel (SimpleImages/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — In what has become a recurring legal battle for the Trump administration, a panel of judges is hearing arguments Friday about the legality of new tariffs that a policy research center says contribute to costing every household about $1,000.
A group of plaintiffs — including 24 states, the toy company behind Care Bears and Lincoln Logs, and a spice importer — argue that the Trump administration is abusing a little-known law to impose a sweeping 10% tariffs after the Supreme Court found the last round of tariffs were unlawful.
“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,” the state attorneys general said in their lawsuit.
The arguments are being heard by a three-judge panel on the Court of International Trade.
The legal dispute comes down to the interpretation of Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, which allows the president to temporarily levy tariffs of up to 15% in response to “fundamental international payments problems” such as “balance-of-payments deficits.” The law allows the president to impose tariffs unilaterally for 150 days, after which Congress needs to approve the tariffs.
Lawyers for the Trump administration have argued that the United States’ massive trade deficit constitutes exactly the kind of problem Section 122 was designed to fix. A coalition of Democratic attorneys general disagrees, arguing the Trump administration is conflating different financial issues — “trade deficits” and “balance of payments deficits.”
While both terms use the word “deficit,” a “trade deficit” is created by having less exports than imports, while a “balance of payments deficit” accounts for all international transactions involving the United States, according to the Cato Institute, a libertarian-leaning think tank.
“Were the President to find the endless tariff authority he seeks based only on his decision to conflate trade deficits alone with balance of payments deficits, he would be seizing power from Congress unconstitutionally,” the attorneys general argue.
According to the Yale Budget Lab, a nonpartisan policy research center, Trump’s tariffs — including the broad Section 122 tariffs, as well as metal and pharmaceutical tariffs imposed under different authorities — are estimated to cost every household between $760 and $940 if the Section 122 tariffs expire within 150 days. If Congress were to extend the tariffs, the price impact could be between $1,200 and $1,500 for each household.
Christine Banfield is seen in an undated photo. Obtained by ABC News
(FAIRFAX, Va.) — Brazilian au pair Juliana Peres Magalhães, who went along with former IRS agent Brendan Banfield in a northern Virginia double murder plot, was sentenced to to 10 years in prison with two years of probation.
On Friday morning, Fairfax County Judge Penney Azcarate decided to give the 25-year-old the maximum sentence, which was up to 10 years on a manslaughter charge for which she pleaded guilty in 2024.
“Your actions were deliberate, self-serving, and demonstrated a profound disregard for human life,” Azcarate said in delivering her ruling. “So, let’s get straight: You do not deserve anything other than incarceration and a life of reflection on what you have done to the victim and this family.”
A new “20/20” episode about the case, “The Au Pair, The Affair and Murder” is scheduled to air Friday, Feb. 20, at 9 p.m. ET on ABC and streaming the next day on Disney+ and Hulu.
Magalhães and Banfield were separately arrested over their roles in the Feb. 24, 2023, murders of Joseph Ryan and Banfield’s wife, Christine Banfield, which were committed inside the Banfield home.
Early in the investigation, detectives discovered evidence suggesting that Banfield and Magalhães were having an affair — and that they had plotted to kill his 37-year-old wife.
Part of that plot, according to prosecutors and Magalhães’ testimony, involved covertly creating a profile for, and thus masquerading as, Christine on a social media site for sexual fetishes.
Ryan, 39, took the bait in what prosecutors called the “catfishing” scheme. Ryan communicated back and forth with the profile account that was allegedly posing as Christine, as they together crafted a rape fantasy scenario using a knife, chains and rope.
“I have caused pain that cannot be measured. I pray for forgiveness from the Benson family, and from the Joseph Ryan family,” Magalhães said during Friday’s sentencing hearing.
“There is nothing I could possibly do to make it up to you, for your loss. There are so many regrets, this is my biggest. It’s a tragedy I have been carrying with me, and I know I can never take back the devastation of what I have done,” she added.
Saying she lost herself in the relationship with Banfield, she has changed in jail over the past three years.
At the time, Magalhães and Banfield told police they came home to find Ryan — a stranger to them — stabbing Christine Banfield to death. Banfield and Magalhães each fired a shot, killing Ryan, they said both in their 911 call and to responding officers at the scene.
In October 2023, Magalhães was charged with the second-degree murder of Ryan, as she had admitted to firing the second, fatal shot.
One year later, Magalhães took a plea deal with prosecutors, turning on Banfield in exchange for a lesser charge of manslaughter. Prosecutors also promised to recommend to the judge upon sentencing that Magalhães only get time served.
With that agreement, Magalhães sat for nearly four hours of interviews with prosecutors, largely confirming the theory detectives had developed about their scheme.
Magalhães also took the stand in the trial against Banfield in January, as he maintained his innocence. During his three-week-long trial, Banfield even took the stand, testifying in his own defense.
After two days — nearly nine hours total — of deliberations in the trial, the jury reached a verdict on Feb. 2. The jury found Banfield guilty on all four counts, which included two counts of aggravated murder, one count of child endangerment, and possession of a firearm in commission of a felony.
Family and friends of Christine Banfield and Joseph Ryan filled the courtroom Friday morning for Magalhães’ sentencing.
Joining remotely online from Florida, Ryan’s mother, Deirdre Fisher, delivered her victim impact statement. She said her son was born two days before Christmas, making it a special holiday for them. Since Ryan’s murder, she has not been able to take down her Christmas tree, which sits behind the urn holding her son’s ashes.
“I say good morning to him each day when I turn on the tree’s lights, and I tell him I love him each night when I turn off the lights,” Fisher told the court.
Fisher said she has missed so many milestones now, including the chance to be a grandmother. There have been many times, Fisher said, when she’s reached for the phone to call her son, only to remember that he can’t and won’t answer.
Ryan’s aunt, Sangeeta Ryan, delivered her impact statement from the courtroom, pausing periodically between sobs.
“He was fun-loving and loved from the beginning. He was inquisitive, curious, smart, charming, and so dang talkative,” she said.
Ryan’s aunt described her nephew’s love for animals and the environment, noting that he often rescued and adopted dogs.
Sangeeta Ryan, added that he also was a dedicated member of their family, especially in taking care of his grandmother, who, she said, sold her home in wake of Ryan’s murder to “dodge memories, grief, and reporters.”
Acknowledging that Magalhães did eventually come forward with the truth, Sangeeta Ryan said that this still was not an act of heroism on Magalhães’ part.
“This could have been a very different ending where Juliana saved two lives,” she said could have been the case if Magalhães had not gone along with Banfield’s plot.
As Magalhães was charged only in Ryan’s murder, Judge Azcarate ruled that prosecutors could not include victim impact statements that Christine Banfield’s family members had prepared.
The death penalty was abolished in Virginia in 2021, meaning that, following his conviction, Banfield is facing life in prison without parole.
US President Donald Trump during a military Mother’s Day event in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — A federal court on Thursday concluded that President Donald Trump’s global 10% tariffs are unlawful, a decision that the Department of Justice quickly appealed.
In a 2-1 decision, a panel of judges on the Court of International Trade concluded that the Trump administration misread the law used to justify the sweeping tariffs.
The ruling marks the second time the president’s tariff regime has been found to be illegal, with the Supreme Court earlier this year affirming a decision from the Court of International Trade blocking Trump’s first round of tariffs.
Lawyers for the Department of Justice filed a notice of appeal at the Court of International Trade on Friday, signaling plans to challenge yesterday’s ruling.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C., handles appeals from the Court of International Trade. The tariffs in question are set to expire in late July and it is unclear if the court will hear the case in time to meaningfully rule on the issue.
The immediate impact of Thursday’s ruling is also unclear. The court granted an injunction for two small businesses and the state of Washington; however, the judges dismissed the claims brought by the larger group of states because they lacked standing.
The dispute boiled down to the definition of the phrase “balance-of-payments deficits.” The Court of International Trade rejected the Trump administration’s argument that the term “balance-of-payments deficits” in Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 is the same as a “trade deficit.”
“It is clear that Congress was aware of the differences in the words it chose,” the majority wrote.
The judges acknowledged that the term “causes some confusion,” but concluded that the Trump administration’s interpretation was incorrect.
“The Government argues that in today’s world, the current account is the proper component for identifying a balance-of-payments deficit,” the majority wrote. “Problematically for the Government, and as discussed herein, Congress in 1974 identified the settlement, liquidity, and basic balance deficits as ‘balance-of-payments deficits.'”
The global 10% tariff took effect in February and by statute is set to expire in late July.
Signage at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) headquarters in Washington, DC, US, on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026. Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — The Environmental Protection Agency has walked back a landmark environmental decision to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change.
Calling it “the single largest deregulatory action in U.S. history,” the EPA announced Thursday that it was “eliminating both the Obama-era 2009 Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Endangerment Finding and all subsequent federal GHG emission standards for all vehicles and engines of model years 2012 to 2027 and beyond.”
For more than 16 years, the EPA’s endangerment finding served as the scientific and legal foundation for federal regulations on carbon dioxide and five other heat-trapping greenhouse gases. The 2009 decision found that certain greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare. The regulations that resulted cover everything from vehicle tailpipe emissions to the release of greenhouse gases from power plants and other significant emission sources.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin made the announcement in the White House, alongside President Donald Trump.
“The Endangerment Finding has been the source of 16 years of consumer choice restrictions and trillions of dollars in hidden costs for Americans,” Zeldin said in a statement after the announcement. “The Trump EPA is strictly following the letter of the law, returning commonsense to policy, delivering consumer choice to Americans and advancing the American Dream.”
The EPA said the decision would “[save] American taxpayers over $1.3 trillion,” and “restores consumer choice, makes more affordable vehicles available for American families, and decreases the cost of living on all products by lowering the cost of trucks.”
In a statement to ABC News prior to Thursday’s announcement, the EPA called the endangerment finding “one of the most damaging decisions in modern history,” adding, “in the intervening years, hardworking families and small businesses have paid the price as a result.”
Some climate scientists and policy experts say the agency’s decision to repeal the finding, even just for cars and trucks, could significantly affect U.S. efforts to address human-amplified climate change. The EPA calculates that the transportation sector is the largest contributor of direct greenhouse gas emissions in the country, with cars and trucks accounting for more 75% of those emissions.
“This is taking away the principal federal authority to regulate greenhouse gases. All of the federal regulations under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases depend on the endangerment finding. If it’s wiped out, none of those regulations exist,” said Michael Gerrard, a professor at Columbia Law School and the faculty director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law.
Gerrard said the immediate impact of the EPA’s decision will be somewhat muted by the fact that the Trump administration has already revoked most regulations on greenhouse gas emissions. These include greenhouse gas emission limits on passenger vehicles, emission controls on fossil fuel-powered power plants, and controls on methane leakage from oil and gas wells.
“But this action attempts to be the nail in the coffin of all those regulations, at least for the balance of the Trump administration,” Gerrard added.
Saying the decision “amounts to the largest act of deregulation in the history of the United States,” the Trump administration estimates the move will save Americans $1.3 trillion, primarily by reducing the cost of cars and trucks. The EPA said consumers will save more than $2,400 on the purchase of a new vehicle.
But Lou Leonard, dean of Clark University’s School of Climate, Environment, and Society, says the repeal could also result in companies facing more financial and legal challenges.
“It’s going to expose, particularly businesses that are very fossil fuel intensive, to legal claims that they might not have otherwise been exposed to,” said Leonard.
“When the EPA vacates the space legally and says we’re not going to regulate, we’re out of this game, then that not only creates room for other state and local governments to do their regulation, but it also creates room for legal claims against companies for not acting on climate, because they can’t say, well, we’re just following the regulations that the federal government has created,” he added.
“The EPA’s 2009 endangerment finding triggered a trillion-dollar regulatory cascade that Congress never authorized,” the conservative nonprofit Pacific Legal Foundation said in a statement to ABC News. “What began as authority to address regional smog and acid rain has been stretched to vehicle emissions, power plants, oil and gas operations, and federal lands – reshaping America’s entire energy economy and ability to harness natural resources through administrative fiat.”
The EPA’s expected repeal of the 2009 finding “restores the principle that decisions of this magnitude require clear congressional authorization, not bureaucratic improvisation,” the statement continued.
A widely anticipated decision
The announcement from the administration was widely anticipated; the Trump administration has made the endangerment finding’s review a priority since the first day of Trump’s second term.
On Jan. 20, 2025, Trump signed an executive order titled “Unleashing American Energy” that required the head of the EPA to work with other agencies to “submit joint recommendations to the Director of OMB on the legality and continuing applicability of the Administrator’s findings” regarding the endangerment finding. The order gave them 30 days to respond.
Then, in March, the EPA announced more than two dozen policy recommendations aimed at rolling back environmental protections and eliminating a series of climate change regulations, including plans to “formally reconsider the endangerment finding.”
In a statement at the time, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin wrote, “The Trump Administration will not sacrifice national prosperity, energy security, and the freedom of our people for an agenda that throttles our industries, our mobility, and our consumer choice while benefiting adversaries overseas. We will follow the science, the law, and common sense wherever it leads, and we will do so while advancing our commitment towards helping to deliver cleaner, healthier, and safer air, land, and water.”
As part of the March announcement, the agency released a fact sheet about the endangerment finding, describing it as “the first step in the Obama-Biden Administration’s (and later the Biden-Harris Administration’s) overreaching climate agenda” and stating that it has cost the country trillions of dollars.
The EPA announced its proposal to rescind the endangerment finding in late July 2025, citing recent Supreme Court decisions that limited the regulatory power of executive agencies and arguing that the Obama administration misinterpreted Congress’s intent when it passed the Clean Air Act.
The Supreme Court case that led to the endangerment finding
The endangerment finding stems from the 2007 Supreme Court decision Massachusetts v. EPA, which held that the EPA could regulate greenhouse gases from motor vehicles under the 1970 Clean Air Act because those gases are air pollutants.
That ruling became the legal foundation for many of the federal government’s greenhouse gas emissions regulations for vehicles, fossil-fuel power plants, and other sources of pollution responsible for climate change.
Writing for the court at the time, Justice John Paul Stevens said, “If EPA makes a finding of endangerment, the Clean Air Act requires the agency to regulate emissions of the deleterious pollutant from new motor vehicles.”
“Under the clear terms of the Clean Air Act, EPA can avoid taking further action only if it determines that greenhouse gases do not contribute to climate change or if it provides some reasonable explanation as to why it cannot or will not exercise its discretion to determine whether they do,” Stevens added.
In 2009, the head of the EPA made a landmark environmental decision. Lisa P. Jackson, appointed by President Barack Obama to lead the agency, determined that the current and projected concentrations of six greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, “endanger both the public health and the public welfare of current and future generations.” Her decision, based on a nearly 200-page EPA analysis of the science, more than 380,000 public comments and two public hearings, became what is now known as the “endangerment finding.”
Critics of decision say the underlying science is even stronger today
Critics of the administration’s plan to rescind the finding argue that the science linking greenhouse gas emissions to climate change is even stronger today than when the endangerment finding was established in 2009. They argue that the repeal lacks both a scientific basis and a legal foundation and will exacerbate the harmful impacts of climate change. Some are already promising to fight the decision in court.
“The Trump administration justifies this assault on science and our health by falsely claiming that U.S. climate-heating pollution doesn’t matter and that it lacks the authority to cut it. That’s a lie, and any 6-year-old knows it’s wrong to lie,” said Dan Becker, director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Safe Climate Transport Campaign, in a statement to ABC News.
“The United States is the second-largest carbon polluter in the world after China, and the largest historical emitter of greenhouse gases. The U.S. emitted 11% of the world’s greenhouse gases in 2021, and during Trump’s first term his administration admitted that emissions in excess of 3% were ‘significant,’” he added.
“EPA’s own settled science shows that managing greenhouse gases is fundamental to protecting Americans. Rolling back these safeguards is a dangerous breach of responsibility to protect people, the environment, and our economy, benefitting polluters at the expense of all people,” said World Resources Institute (WRI) U.S. Director David Widawsky in a statement.
Overwhelming scientific evidence
In the more than 16 years since the EPA issued its 2009 endangerment finding, the science on how greenhouse gases impact human health has become more robust.
In response to the EPA’s request for public input, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine conducted a comprehensive independent assessment of the science behind the endangerment finding to help inform the agency’s final decision. They released their report in September, concluding the EPA’s 2009 determination was accurate and is now supported by stronger scientific evidence, with many uncertainties that existed at the time now resolved.
“[T]he evidence for current and future harm to human health and welfare created by human-caused greenhouse gases is beyond scientific dispute,” the report stated.
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine are private, nonprofit institutions that provide independent, objective analysis and advice to the nation on such issues. They operate under an 1863 congressional charter to the National Academy of Sciences, signed by President Abraham Lincoln.
Similarly, the United Nations concluded that “health and the climate are inextricably linked, and today the health of billions is endangered by the climate crisis.” The U.N. cited severe weather events, toxic air pollution, an increased risk of infectious disease outbreaks, and extreme heat as evidence that human-amplified climate change poses a significant danger to people.
In 2021, 200 leading medical journals issued a joint editorial stating that “the science is unequivocal: a global increase of 1.5° C above the pre-industrial average and the continued loss of biodiversity risk catastrophic harm to health that will be impossible to reverse.”
And in 2023, the Fifth National Climate Assessment, a report that the federal government describes as providing “authoritative scientific information about climate change risks, impacts, and responses in the U.S.,” found that “climate changes are making it harder to maintain safe homes and healthy families; reliable public services; a sustainable economy; thriving ecosystems, cultures, and traditions; and strong communities.”
“This is another setback in the fight against climate change. We’re already seeing climate change having very negative impacts. It worsens flooding, heat waves, wildfires and other impacts. We’ve seen catastrophes already in the United States for all of these. We will see more,” Gerrard said.
What happens next?
A coalition of state attorneys general, including those from California, New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, along with environmental groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council, has indicated they will challenge the EPA’s decision. They argue the action is unlawful because it ignores the agency’s obligations under the Clean Air Act to regulate pollutants that endanger public health and welfare.
“This action is unlawful, ignores basic science, and denies reality. We know greenhouse gases cause climate change and endanger our communities and our health – and we will not stop fighting to protect the American people from pollution,” said California Governor Gavin Newsom and Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers, who are also the co-chairs of the U.S. Climate Alliance.
While the courts could overturn the repeal, Gerrard said they could also rule that the EPA needs congressional authorization for significant regulatory actions.
“If the Supreme Court says that, that would tie the hands of another president in reinstating the endangerment finding and in using the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases. It would not block another president from rejoining the Paris Agreement or doing lots of other things to fight climate change, but it would greatly hurt their ability to use the Clean Air Act,” said Gerrard.
Previous lawsuits challenged the endangerment finding itself, but the courts have consistently rejected those efforts. In 2012, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the endangerment finding after fossil fuel industry groups challenged the EPA’s use of scientific assessments. The court ruled that the EPA’s findings were supported by substantial evidence and that the agency had considered the scientific evidence in “a rational manner.” The following year, the Supreme Court declined to hear petitions specifically contesting the finding.
Leonard warns that it will be a “long road” to learn out how the decision plays out.
“There’s a lot of uncertainty, and we’re gonna have even more starting tomorrow or the next day, and that’s not good. It’s not good for the public health of Americans, it’s not good for the welfare of our communities, and it’s not good for the business climate and the economy in America,” said Leonard.
