The U.S. Court of International Trade threw out a legal challenge to President Trump's executive order scrapping the so-called de minimum exemption loophole under which goods worth less than $800 could enter the United States duty free. File Photo by Terry Schmitt/UPI | License Photo
Aug. 14 (UPI) -- A federal trade court threw out a legal challenge to President Trump's executive order scrapping the so-called "de minimis" exemption loophole under which goods worth less than $800 could enter the United States duty free.
Three judges sitting in the U.S. Court of International Trade ruled Thursday that Trump had the legal authority to invoke the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to eliminate de minimis, in contrast to his April 2025 "liberation day" global tariffs which it ruled were unlawful, a decision the Supreme Court subsequently upheld.
"In reaching this conclusion, we find that the President's power to 'nullify [or] void . . . exercising any . . . privilege' does not run afoul of separation of powers principles," they wrote in their judgment.
The judges found the removal of the exemption did not constitute "an exercise of the power of the purse" and "is not an exercise of the power to legislate."
