The Daily Fuckup

On June 29, 2025, the Trump administration was still defending tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, even after losing on the merits in the Court of International Trade. The CIT ruled on May 28, 2025, that the executive orders imposing those duties were unlawful and entered permanent injunctive relief. The next day, the Federal Circuit stayed that ruling while the appeal moved forward, which meant the tariffs kept being collected for the time being.

That posture matters. The dispute was no longer just about whether the White House could describe trade deficits or import pressure as an emergency. It had become a direct test of whether IEEPA gave the president power to impose broad tariff measures without new legislation from Congress. The CIT said the answer was no. Appellate review was still underway, but the government had already taken an adverse merits loss in the trial court.

For importers, the practical reality was not legal finality but continued exposure. Businesses still had to price goods, place orders, and write contracts around duties that might eventually be struck down, narrowed, or refunded later. The Federal Circuit’s stay kept the existing tariff collections in place while judges sorted out the scope of presidential authority and the remedies that would follow if the government ultimately lost.

The administration’s position rested on a broad reading of emergency power. Its lawyers argued that IEEPA allowed the president to move quickly and use tariffs as leverage in a national emergency. Opponents said that reading went too far and shifted a core trade function away from Congress. That is the fight now running through the courts: not whether the tariffs are politically important, but whether the statute the White House invoked actually authorizes them.

So the clean June 29 status was this: the government had already lost a key round at the Court of International Trade, the appeal was still active, and the duties were still being collected because the Federal Circuit had stayed the judgment pending review.