# Court of International Trade The **U.S. Court of International Trade (CIT)** is the Article III court, sitting in New York with nine judges and nationwide jurisdiction, that hears civil actions arising from customs and international-trade law — classification and valuation disputes, antidumping and countervailing-duty reviews, and challenges to trade actions of the executive. Appeals go to the Federal Circuit. Successor to the Customs Court (renamed in 1980), it was for most of its history the least political court in the federal system. In 2025–26 it became the primary battleground of the tariff wars. ## The tariff cases - **IEEPA.** The CIT was the first court to hold, in May 2025, that the [[International Emergency Economic Powers Act]] does not authorize tariffs at all; the Supreme Court agreed 6–3 in *[[Learning Resources v. Trump]]* (February 20, 2026), and the CIT then supervised the refund of roughly **$166 billion** in [[Liberation Day Tariffs]] duties through Customs and Border Protection. - **Section 122.** The administration's replacement — a 10 percent balance-of-payments surcharge under § 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 (the statute's ceiling is 15 percent) — was struck down on **May 7, 2026** in *Oregon v. United States* and *Burlap and Barrel v. United States* (Chief Judge Barnett and Judge Kelly; Judge Stanceu dissenting): the statute requires a balance-of-payments deficit measured by its 1970s definitions, not a trade deficit. The government appealed the next day; the surcharge expired by its own terms on July 24, 2026. - **Section 301.** The third statute in [[Jamieson Greer]]'s sequence — investigations concluded in summer 2026 and the [[Section 301 Forced Labor Tariffs]] that replaced the § 122 duties — is now before the court in importer suits and a 25-state challenge. See [[Tariffs]] for the sequence IEEPA → § 122 → § 301. ## Why it matters here The CIT is the proof that the tariff program's constraint was never Congress, which did nothing, but a specialist court that took the statutes at their word. Each ruling has been answered not by retreat but by a new statute — the same tariff, three authorities — which makes the court the place to watch for whether any of them will be the last. See the [[Judiciary Hub]] and [[United States Courts of Appeals]] for where the appeals go. ## See Also - [[Liberation Day Tariffs]] · [[Section 301 Forced Labor Tariffs]] · [[International Emergency Economic Powers Act]] · [[Learning Resources v. Trump]] · [[Tariffs]] · [[Jamieson Greer]] - [[United States Courts of Appeals]] · [[Judiciary Hub]]