WASHINGTON – An American food importer filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over Washington’s latest tariffs on a range of Canadian goods, claiming U.S. President Donald Trump has overstepped the power of his office. The Gellert Global Group is a third-generation family business based in New Jersey and has imported Canadian cheese for around 100 years. The company said Trump’s use of a depression-era trade law to enact tariffs on Canadian dairy will cost them US$40 million a year. The lawsuit was filed Tuesday by Liberty Justice Center on behalf of Gellert Global Group in a New York-based court. Liberty Justice Center CEO Sara Albrecht told CTV News she’s played “a game of whack-a-mole” with Trump’s tariffs. “We will continue to keep fighting these things as long as they are abusing the (U.S.) Constitution as it’s written, and abusing the separation of powers, and basically taking authority that the executive branch doesn’t have,” Albrecht said. In a separate news release shared Tuesday, Albrecht said: “No president should have the power to pull a dormant statute off the shelf and use it to impose sweeping tariffs or import bans without the limits of (the U.S.) Congress required.” After trade talks between Canada and the U.S. broke down in August, Trump used the little-known Tariff Act of 1930 to impose more punishment on Canadian imports, including dairy, alcohol, furniture and yes, even hockey sticks. “Section 338 is from the Trade Act of 1930, the Smoot-Hawley Trade Act, which kind of launched the Great Depression, so, not something we’d really want to emulate. The section has never been used before to implement tariffs on American importers,” Albrecht told CTV News. Thomas Gellert, co-CEO of Gellert Global Group, said in a news release the company has “spent generations building trusted relationships with suppliers, customers and partners across the food industry.” “These tariffs disrupt those relationships overnight and create costs and uncertainty that ripple through the entire supply chain,” Gellert said. This is just the latest legal challenge to how far the U.S. president can go with his tariff policies. The lawsuit asked the court to declare these tariffs unlawful and order a refund ... with interest. While neither Trump nor the White House have publicly commented on the lawsuit, a Trump administration told The Canadian Press on background that the president’s actions will be vigorously defended in court. With files from The Canadian Press
