David Axelrod, ex-senior adviser to former President Barack Obama, on Wednesday said a federal trade court blocking President Donald Trump from imposing his sweeping tariffs may create “a lot of havoc” in the short run but the ruling may “save him from himself” in the long run.
“These tariffs are bad economic policy and these tariffs could raise costs on Americans,” Axelrod told CNN’s Anderson Cooper before noting that some costs are already starting to rise as a result of the president’s trade policy.
“So if the result of it is he’s stymied in doing something that’s going to raise costs for people, it may be a black eye but it may also be a break for him,” he said.
Just hours earlier, a three-judge panel ruled that Trump isn’t authorized under an emergency-powers law to impose his sweeping taxes on imports, marking a blow to his “Liberation Day” rollout that upset global financial markets and sparked trade wars, including one with China.
The ruling will likely be appealed by the White House and could eventually go before the Supreme Court.
Trump senior adviser Stephen Miller reacted to the ruling by the U.S. Court of International Trade on social media by declaring that the “judicial coup is out of control.”
CNN legal expert Elie Honig stressed that the court is “fully legitimate” and the panel is made up of judges appointed by Trump, Ronald Reagan and Obama.
He described the ruling as a “huge setback” for the administration and emphasized that the court found that Trump leaning on talk of trade deficits didn’t constitute an economic “emergency.”