The Liberty Justice Center filed a suit on Tuesday at the U.S. Court of International Trade, on behalf of New Jersey’s Gellert Global Group, against 50% tariffs on Canadian goods. The White House imposed them after trade talks broke down in August. The claim: the levies are unlawful and importers should be refunded with interest. It is a filing. It is not a judgment. The tariffs are not cancelled.

The BBC writes that Gellert, a third-generation family firm, pays 50% on cheese from Canada and, in the mirror, Canadian retaliatory tariffs on American cheese it sells north of the border. Thomas Gellert: relationships with suppliers and customers, built over generations, break overnight. The White House was asked for comment.

The group challenges the use of Section 338 of the 1930 Tariff Act — a nearly century-old text, they say, aimed at foreign discrimination, not a tool for sweeping tariffs whenever a trade dispute arises. They argue that Section 301 of 1974 superseded it. And that the law requires a 30-day wait; cheese was added to the list a week before collection. Those are arguments. They are not findings of the court.

Sara Albrecht, Liberty Justice Center’s chief executive: the case is not about Trump, it is about the presidency. “No president should have the power to pull a dormant statute off the shelf.” It is the group’s fourth action against the tariffs, after the IEEPA case it won in February. February does not judge 338. They also asked for a preliminary injunction to stop collection. The request is not the injunction.

Carney matched the 338 tariffs “dollar for dollar” last month. The industrial package announced on Wednesday in Ottawa is another act. The New York filing does not lift the 50%. Nor does it refund.

Source consulted: Trump sued over Canadian tariffs in latest legal challenge — BBC.

Image: the U.S. Court of International Trade, Manhattan, 17 May 2012, Ken Lund, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons. The building, not Tuesday’s filing.

Sources consulted: Liberty Justice Center sues over Trump’s revival of 1930 tariff law — LJC.