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Former Vice President Mike Pence has publicly supported Costco in its lawsuit against the Trump administration over import tariffs.
“American companies and American consumers pay the cost of American tariffs,” Pence wrote in a post to X on Monday. “Free trade with free nations.”
The case, which was filed on Friday in the U.S. Court of International Trade, focuses on high tariffs, or import taxes, that President Donald Trump started placing on goods from several countries, including China, Mexico and Canada, earlier this year.
The lawsuit states that Congress, not the president, can set tariffs and therefore Trump exceeded the authority granted to him by the 1977 emergency law called the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).
“The text of IEEPA does not use the word ‘tariff’ or any term of equivalent meaning,” the court document reads. “IEEPA was first enacted in 1977 and has been amended several times, but it has never been amended to authorize, or used by any other president to impose, tariffs.”
Kush Desai, a spokesman for the White House, told the New York Times that the “economic consequences of the failure to uphold President Trump’s lawful tariffs are enormous and this suit highlights that fact. The White House looks forward to the Supreme Court’s speedy and proper resolution of this matter.”
The act states that the “IEEPA gives the President broad authorities to address declared emergencies concerning certain ‘unusual and extraordinary’ threats to national security, foreign policy, or the economy, including the authority to ‘regulate’ or ‘prohibit’ imports.”
Costco is arguing that the chaotic and frequently shifting nature of these IEEPA duties is the best evidence that the president was acting without proper legal limits, and is what made the global markets to gyrate.
Trump has previously argued that the tariffs have helped the government bring in “hundreds of billions of dollars,” the New York Times wrote.
Importers like the wine and spirits company V.O.S. Selections and Learning Resources, Inc., an educational toymaker, have secured major rulings in the past against the administration in lower federal courts, the Times wrote.
Costco is asking the court to declare that tariffs are illegal, order the government to stop collecting the tariffs from the company and force the U.S. government to refund all of the IEEPA duties Costco has already paid, plus interest, the records show.
The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in early November and plans to issue a decision in the near future.
Pence’s support is consistent with his long-standing opposition to the tariffs and his argument that the president overstepped his authority.
“I don’t believe the Constitution affords the President the authority to unilaterally impose tariffs on friend and foe, and I hope the Supreme Court turns that around,” Pence said during a Jefferson Educational Society summit on Nov. 5. ”Ultimately, American businesses and American consumers pay the tariffs.“
The issue resonates with American consumers.
A November poll from Yahoo/YouGov found that almost half of Americans (49%) say Trump is doing more to raise prices than to lower them (24%).
Of those who responded to the survey, 79% say that compared to a few years ago, they are paying more money for the same goods and services. Meanwhile, six out of 10 Americans (60%) said inflation is getting worse in the country.