Trump officials say tariffs pushed China to talk, halted India-Pakistan conflict

The Trump administration’s top officials have urged a US court to uphold the president’s sweeping tariff powers, warning that a legal setback could upend an “asymmetric” trade truce with China, embarrass Washington and reignite conflict between India and Pakistan.

The officials claimed that Trump used his tariff power to broker a ceasefire between New Delhi and Islamabad earlier this month and bring about a fragile peace. They further cautioned that trade negotiations with dozens of countries remained in a “delicate state,” with a July 7 deadline to finalise deals fast approaching.

Trump’s use of tariffs as a policy tool has elicited criticism from his opponents over unclear goals, inconsistent messaging in a vaguely defined push to restore American manufacturing.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, and Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Marco Rubio submitted their statements on Friday to the New York-based Court of International Trade, in response to a lawsuit filed by a coalition of small American businesses challenging US President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

A three-judge panel at the court is considering whether Trump’s use of a “national emergency” was legally justified to support the tariffs.

If the court limited Trump’s authority, Lutnick argued, “foreign counterparts will have reduced incentives to reach meaningful agreements” and it would “destroy the carefully crafted China trade agreement, which is asymmetric in America’s favour, in order to address the emergency of our persistent goods trade deficit”.

South China Morning Post