Gellert Sues Over 50% Canadian Tariff in Fourth Court Challenge

The White House faces its fourth tariff lawsuit this year over a 50% levy on roughly $20 billion of Canadian goods. It comes from the same legal outfit that already toppled Trump's "liberation day" import taxes.

The Liberty Justice Center filed the action this week at the US Court of International Trade on behalf of Gellert Global Group, a third-generation New Jersey food importer paying 50% duties on Canadian cheese. The suit asks the court to declare the levies unlawful and order refunds with interest for affected importers.

US-Canada trade talks broke down in August. That breakdown pushed the White House to invoke Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, hitting Canadian goods from wine and dairy to hockey sticks. Canada answered with retaliatory levies on a wide range of US products.

What is Section 338, and why does it matter?

The challengers target a nearly 100-year-old provision aimed at shielding US business from foreign discrimination. Liberty Justice argues the clause does not authorize "sweeping tariffs or import restrictions whenever a trade dispute arises."

For importers, that's the practical question. Section 338 requires a 30-day waiting period before any levy takes effect, but the Trump administration added cheese to the covered list one week before collection began, the suit alleges. Prime Minister Mark Carney matched the duties "dollar for dollar" last month, after Trump cited "unequal treatment" of US cars, dairy, and alcohol.

What does Gellert Global say?

Thomas Gellert, co-chief executive of the family-owned importer, said the firm spent generations building supplier and customer relationships the new duties have upended. "These tariffs disrupt those relationships overnight and create costs and uncertainty that ripple through the entire supply chain," he said Tuesday.

Gellert Global also faces retaliatory Canadian tariffs on the American-made cheese it sells north of the border — a double squeeze that captures the bind operators keep warning about. The company's pain is the lawsuit's selling point: a real plaintiff with real invoices showing the 50% hit.

Who has the power to levy duties?

That question sits at the lawsuit's core. Sara Albrecht, chief executive of the Liberty Justice Center, framed the case as a constitutional dispute, not a Trump-specific grievance. "No president should have the power to pull a dormant statute off the shelf and use it to impose sweeping tariffs or import bans without the limits Congress required," she said.

The complaint argues Section 338 has been superseded by Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, the modern authority for retaliatory tariffs. If Section 338 still applies, the suit says, the White House never established the legal footing for duties this broad.

Liberty Justice put it bluntly in a statement: "The case is not an objection to tariffs as such. It asks who has the power to impose them and whether the executive branch followed the law Congress wrote."

The group has also moved for a preliminary injunction to halt collection while the case proceeds — a critical ask for importers watching cash flow.

What does this change for importers?

For US businesses pulling Canadian product, the suit opens another path to potential refunds if courts side with the challengers. The Liberty Justice Center won its earlier IEEPA case in February, when a court struck down the sweeping "liberation day" tariffs that touched most of America's major trading partners.

That precedent is what importer lawyers will lean on as they weigh their own claims. With four active or recent tariff challenges against the administration and a presidential election cycle underway, the legal calendar now matters as much as the trade calendar for anyone pricing goods across the northern border.

The White House did not return a request for comment.