US Food Importer Sues Trump Over 50 Percent Tariffs on Canadian Goods

A US food importer has sued President Donald Trump over his 50 percent tariffs on Canadian goods, arguing he lacks the legal authority to impose such sweeping tariffs without congressional approval. The Gellert Global Group, a New Jersey-based company, filed the lawsuit on Tuesday in the US Court of International Trade in New York.

Gellert imports Canadian cheese. The third-generation family business says the tariffs are driving up its costs and disrupting its long-standing relationships with suppliers on both sides of the border. According to the complaint, between September 16 and October 11 the company paid more than $520,000 in duties.

Thomas Gellert, the company's co-chief executive officer, said in a press release that Gellert Global Group has spent generations building trusted relationships with suppliers, customers and partners across the food industry. He said the tariffs disrupt those relationships overnight and create costs and uncertainty that ripple through the entire supply chain.

Trump first imposed the 50 percent tariffs over the summer, accusing Canada of discriminating against American-made cars, alcohol and dairy products. In September he expanded the measures and announced an outright ban on nearly $1 billion worth of Canadian products, including alcoholic beverages, dairy products and motorcycles. The tariffs cover roughly $20 billion worth of Canadian goods in total.

At the centre of the case is Section 338 of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, which allows the president to impose tariffs of up to 50 percent on imports from countries found to discriminate against American businesses. Notably, the provision had never been used until Trump invoked it this year.

The lawsuit argues that the law does not apply to the Canadian policies the administration calls discriminatory. Two of them arose in response to the president's own tariffs, while the third involves Canadian dairy policy governed by the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). The suit also questions why Canadian cheese is being taxed over disputes involving alcohol and cars.

The suit was filed on Gellert's behalf by the Liberty Justice Center, a nonprofit legal organisation. Its chairman and CEO, Sara Albrecht, said no president should have the power to pull a dormant statute off the shelf and use it to impose sweeping tariffs or import bans without the limits Congress required.

Jeffrey Schwab, the centre's senior counsel and director of litigation, said newer laws such as Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 require investigations, public comment and other safeguards, and that these override Section 338. In his words, the administration cannot skip those protections by reaching for a 1930 statute that no president had ever used to impose a tariff.

The lawsuit adds that even if Trump is allowed to use the older law, he has not met its requirements. The law requires a 30-day wait before tariffs can be collected on new products added to the list, but the administration began collecting tariffs on cheese in September after only seven days.

Gellert is asking the court to declare the tariffs illegal, stop them from being collected, and order refunds with interest for importers who have been affected. The White House and the Office of the US Trade Representative did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The lawsuit marks the fourth major legal challenge to Trump's tariffs. In February, the US Supreme Court struck down most of the tariffs he imposed in 2025, and a trade court later ruled against a temporary 10 percent global tariff. A separate challenge to tariffs imposed over alleged forced labour in international trade is still pending.

Since returning to the White House last year, Trump has sought to build a wall of protective tariffs around the US economy. With earlier legal routes closed off, the administration is now searching for alternative legal authority, and the Canada case will be the latest test of that effort. The court's ruling will decide the future of Section 338 and the direction of trade relations between the two neighbours.