WASHINGTON — A panel of appeals court judges bombarded a Trump administration attorney Thursday with pointed questions about the president’s use of emergency powers to levy reciprocal tariffs on dozens of countries — hours before “Liberation Day” duties were set to take effect.

The 11-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit put their most searching inquiries to Assistant US Attorney General Brett Shumate .

“The negative balance of goods is decades and decades old,” one jurist said before asking how the trade deficit could be considered a national emergency given its longstanding nature. 4

Shumate argued that the gap between US imports and exports had widened recently and further contended that Congress has given presidents broad leeway to wield tariffs.

See Full Page