In a direct legal challenge to the Trump White House’s latest trade agenda, a coalition of 25 Democratic-led U.S. states filed a lawsuit Monday against the administration over sweeping new tariffs imposed on trading partners across the globe. The levies, which set rates between 10% and 12.5%, went into effect last month, and the White House has defended the measures as a necessary response to the failure of major economies including the European Union, the United Kingdom, and China to crack down on forced labor in global supply chains.
The legal filing, reviewed by the BBC, argues that the Trump administration’s tariff decision is “arbitrary, capricious, and contrary to law.” The coalition goes further, accusing the White House of using forced labor concerns as a pretext to advance an illegal tariff scheme that exceeds the scope of existing U.S. trade legislation. According to the complaint, the breadth of the tariffs — which cover 99.4% of all U.S. imports, per data from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative — directly undermines the stated goal of targeting forced labor and renders the underlying 1974 Trade Act Section 301 authority the administration invoked meaningless.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul, one of the lead voices behind the lawsuit, framed the measures as an unlawful tax that falls squarely on everyday American households. Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield echoed that criticism, noting that both working families and domestic Oregon businesses are bearing the cost of the administration’s trade chaos, rather than the foreign governments the tariffs are meant to pressure.
In an official response, White House spokesman Kush Desai defended the policy, emphasizing that the U.S. is acting within its lawful authority to address unfair trade practices that harm American businesses. Desai added that allowing goods produced with forced labor to enter U.S. markets is unreasonable, and the administration is right to take action to curb the practice.
The legal challenge comes amid growing international pushback against the new tariffs. Governments of Brazil and Japan have each labeled the measures unjustified, while China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning dismissed the forced labor framing as an excuse for political manipulation. The new tariffs come amid a long-running tit-for-tat trade war between Washington and Beijing that has been paused for months.
Industry and trade analysts have also raised critical questions about the policy. Alex Capri, a business lecturer at the National University of Singapore, told the BBC the lawsuit poses a formidable challenge to the administration’s levies. Capri also noted that there is a lack of credible evidence supporting the administration’s claims that trading partners have harmed U.S. firms by failing to enforce forced labor regulations, and he expects the scope of the tariffs will gradually be narrowed through exemptions and rollbacks that reduce their economic impact.
This latest legal fight is the continuation of a pattern of trade policy clashes that have followed Trump’s return to the Oval Office in January 2025. Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the broad “Liberation Day” tariffs Trump rolled out in April 2025, a decision that required the government to issue tens of billions of dollars in refunds to U.S. companies that had paid the levies. After those tariffs were struck down, the administration replaced them with a temporary 10% levy on all global imports that expired in July, clearing the way for the current round of tariffs now facing legal challenge.
Trump has consistently argued that tariffs are a critical tool to protect American workers and strengthen the U.S. economy. Looking ahead, more trade friction may be on the horizon: the administration is currently conducting investigations into 16 countries over allegations of manufacturing overcapacity, which could pave the way for additional tariffs in the coming months.