On March 25, 2019, the U.S. Court of International Trade (“CIT”) issued its opinion in Am. Inst. For Int’l Steel, Inc. v. United States, a decision addressing whether Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 (“TEA”) “constitutes an improper delegation of legislative authority in violation of Article I, Section I of the U.S. Constitution and the doctrine of separation of powers.” Under Section 232 of the TEA, Congress has delegated the authority to impose tariffs on imports from a particular country if the President finds that they threaten the national security of the United States.

Last year, the American Institute for International Steel, a group of steel importers, filed a suit with the CIT challenging the constitutionality of section 232. In particular, the Institute argued that Section 232 gives the President an extraordinarily broad authority to impose tariffs on imports for national security reasons, which is a grant of authority that violates the constitutional principle requiring Congress to set limits on specific delegations of congressional authority.

The three-judge panel of the CIT agreed with the Government that Section 232 was, in fact, a constitutional delegation of congressional authority to the President. In the decision, the panel noted that, in 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court held that Section 232 was a constitutional exercise of Congress’s delegation authority. Although all three judges on the panel agreed with this conclusion, one member of the panel, Judge Gary Katzmann, expressed his doubts about the constitutionality of the provision.

The parties have 60 days to appeal the decision to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.