Untested in court, Trump's new tariffs on Canada raise legal questions

… <script type="application/ld+json" id="link-ld-json">[{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","url":"https://apnews.com/article/trump-tariff-canada-supreme-court-depression-e5501950e025dbe8df2b7ec662dbe2e4","dateModified":"2026-08-29T12:39:17Z","datePublished":"2026-08-29T12:00:07Z","description":"In firing up a trade war with Canada, President Donald Trump turned to a 96-year-old statute so obscure that many trade lawyers didn’t even know it was still on the books. A week ago, Trump invoked Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 to slap a 50% tax on $20 billion worth of Canadian imports. The move prompted dollar-for-dollar retaliation from Ottawa and strained already-tense relations between the neighbors and longtime allies. The president’s Section 338 tariff authority has never been used, let alone tested in court. So it’s unclear whether Trump’s latest Canada tariffs could survive a legal challenge, and some lawyers argue that the Depression-era law has been rendered obsolete by more recent trade laws.","image":[{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"ImageObject","height":685,"thumbnailUrl":"https://dims.apnews.com/dims4/default/58e77f7/2147483647/strip/false/crop/3000x2098+0+0/resize/980x685!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fassets.apnews.com%2F31%2F59%2Fbea0c0b644c67c99832c74aba225%2F1880b243c2154b8f989a0190e49a6e63","url":"https://dims.apnews.com/dims4/default/58e77f7/2147483647/strip/false/crop/3000x2098+0+0/resize/980x685!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fassets.apnews.com%2F31%2F59%2Fbea0c0b644c67c99832c74aba225%2F1880b243c2154b8f989a0190e49a6e63","width":980}],"name":"Trump's new tariffs on Canada raises legal questions | AP News","mainEntityOfPage":{"primaryImageOfPage":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://dims.apnews.com/dims4/default/58e77f7/2147483647/strip/false/crop/3000x2098+0+0/resize/980x685!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fassets.apnews.com%2F31%2F59%2Fbea0c0b644c67c99832c74aba225%2F1880b243c2154b8f989a0190e49a6e63","width":980,"height":685},"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://apnews.com/article/trump-tariff-canada-supreme-court-depression-e5501950e025dbe8df2b7ec662dbe2e4"},"author":[{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"Person","name":"Paul Wiseman","url":"https://apnews.com/author/paul-wiseman"}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"AP News","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://assets.apnews.com/19/66/bc546486408c8595f01753a9fbeb/ap-logo-176-by-208.svg"}},"articleSection":["Business"],"keywords":["Donald Trump","Canada","International trade","Economic policy","Government policy","Courts","General news","Tariffs and global trade","Trump tariff Canada Supreme court Depression","Politics","Business","Ryan Majerus","Canada government","Discrimination","John Veroneau","United States government","U.S. news","Recessions and depressions","U.S. News"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://dims.apnews.com/dims4/default/58e77f7/2147483647/strip/false/crop/3000x2098+0+0/resize/980x685!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fassets.apnews.com%2F31%2F59%2Fbea0c0b644c67c99832c74aba225%2F1880b243c2154b8f989a0190e49a6e63","headline":"Trump's new tariffs on Canada raises legal questions"}]</script> …