Twenty-Five States Sue Trump Administration Over New Tariffs

Hartford & New Haven, CT, August 4, 2026 —

Twenty-five states, including Connecticut and Rhode Island, have initiated legal action against the Trump administration, challenging new tariffs recently imposed on goods from 59 countries and the European Union.

The states contend in their lawsuit that the administration is employing these tariffs as a strategy to reinstate import taxes that were previously invalidated by the Supreme Court in February. According to the legal filing, these actions constitute an illegal increase in taxes affecting both families and businesses across the states.

The tariffs in question, which fall within the range of 10% to 12.5%, were enacted under the authority of Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. This specific statute has been previously utilized by the administration to implement tariffs on Chinese imports, a measure that saw success in prior instances.

The core of the states’ argument centers on the belief that the new tariffs are not a genuine trade policy adjustment but rather a circumvention of the Supreme Court’s earlier ruling. They assert that the administration is leveraging existing trade law to achieve an outcome that the highest court of the land had already disallowed.

The lawsuit seeks to halt the implementation of these tariffs and prevent what the plaintiff states perceive as an unlawful imposition of financial burdens on their constituents and economies. The outcome of this legal challenge could have significant implications for the administration’s trade policy and its ability to enact tariffs through executive action.

Story summarized from the original created by Paul Wiseman and Mae Anderson | The Associated Press on www.nbcconnecticut.com, see more information here.

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