A New Jersey food importer has accused President Donald Trump of unlawfully invoking a rarely used 1930s trade law to impose 50 percent tariffs on certain Canadian goods. Gellert Global Group filed a lawsuit on October 20 in the U.S. Court of International Trade, arguing that Congress later established trade laws that limit the president’s authority to impose tariffs in response to alleged discrimination against U.S. commerce.
The company imports Canadian cheese, including brie, camembert and goat’s milk cheese. Its complaint says it paid at least $520,538 in duties on 22 shipments between September 16 and October 11, and estimates the tariffs could cost it $40 million a year. Those figures are Gellert’s claims in the lawsuit.
Newsweek has reached out to the White House, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, Gellert Global Group and its attorneys for comment. The lawsuit argues that Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 is no longer a valid basis for the tariffs because Congress later enacted more specific trade laws, including Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974.
Gellert also alleges that the administration failed to follow Section 338’s requirements. The complaint says the law requires a 30-day wait before collecting duties on newly listed goods. It says products added on September 8 became subject to tariffs on September 15, just seven days later.
The court has not ruled on these claims. Sara Albrecht, chair of the Liberty Justice Center, which represents Gellert, said: “No president should have the power to pull a dormant statute off the shelf and use it to impose sweeping tariffs.” The group also represented challengers to earlier Trump tariffs that the Supreme Court struck down this year. The White House said it would vigorously defend the tariffs and considers Section 338 an appropriate way to respond to what it calls Canadian discrimination against U.S. dairy, alcohol and auto exports.
Section 338 allows a president to impose duties of up to 50 percent after finding that a foreign country discriminates against U.S. commerce or puts American products at a disadvantage. The complaint says no president had used the provision to impose tariffs in the 96 years before the Trump administration invoked it in 2026. The legal dispute centers on whether that old authority remains available after Congress passed newer trade laws and whether the administration met the requirements of Section 338 itself.
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