A federal court has voided President Donald Trump’s recent sweeping tariffs on its trade allies, ruling that he lacks the constitutional powers to impose them.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of International Trade on Wednesday issued a unanimous ruling that Mr Trump was overstepping his executive powers with the tariffs imposed on imports from nearly every nation, including Canada, China, Mexico, and most recently the EU.

“The court does not read IEEPA to confer such unbounded authority and sets aside the challenged tariffs imposed thereunder,” the panel wrote in their decision on Wednesday. (The IEEPA stands for International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977).

That responsibility, according to the trade court, rests on the Congress, ruling that even the congress members could not transfer such “unbounded tariff power” to the president. 

“An unlimited delegation of tariff authority would constitute an improper abdication of legislative power to another branch of government,” the trade court said. 

Mr Trump’s justification for the tariffs relied on the declarations of national emergencies on drug smuggling and the looming threat posed by the U.S. trade deficit, which he claimed could escalate into a national emergency.

The plaintiffs countered that the trade deficit had been in existence for decades without triggering any economic crisis and that the situation was unlikely to change.

They also argued that no other president had relied on the IEEPA to impose tariffs on U.S. trade partners because they knew they lacked the authority to do so.

The New York-based federal court sided with the plaintiffs, adjudging that the law, IEEPA, does not explicitly authorise the president to impose what it described as “unbounded tariffs”.

“The Worldwide and Retaliatory Tariff Orders exceed any authority granted to the President by IEEPA to regulate importation by means of tariffs,” the federal court wrote in its decision.

The administration’s lawyers have already indicated interest in appealing the decision, and the White House released a statement stating that it is not up to judges to dictate how the government will respond to emergencies.

“It is not for unelected judges to decide how to properly address a national emergency,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said. “President Trump pledged to put America first, and the administration is committed to using every lever of executive power to address this crisis and restore American Greatness.”