https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/29/blue-states-cheer-trumps-tariff-setbacks-00375415
Newsom taunts Trump after tariffs loss: ‘It’s raining tacos’
Democratic governors are taking a victory lap after a pair of court rulings against the president’s import tariffs.
SAN FRANCISCO — Of all the blue state legal challenges to President Donald Trump, none have delivered as big a blow as two court rulings striking down his tariffs on imports from dozens of countries.
Democratic governors and attorneys general seized the pair of rulings on Thursday as an affirmation of their warnings about the economic toll of rising prices on consumer goods and emptying shipping containers at ports along the East and West coasts.
It was a stinging rebuke of Trump — and a rare victory for Democrats out of power in Washington and increasingly dependent on the courts system and Democratic-controlled state capitals to mount their resistance to the president.
“It’s raining tacos today,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom said on the MeidasTouch Podcast on Thursday, an apparent reference to the TACO acronym that Wall Street investors have used to refer to whiplash over Trump’s see-sawing import taxes. The president has bristled at the name, which stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
Newsom, whose state was among more than 14 that sued to challenge the tariffs, added, “It’s not a good day for Donald Trump and his central economic program. We’re very, very pleased at this moment, this brief moment.”
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, basking in the victory for blue states, told POLITICO that of all the lawsuits Democrats have filed to challenge Trump’s policies, the tariffs issue is “the most substantial for our economy, for our prosperity.”
Democrats’ victory lap came after the New York-based U.S. Court of International Trade struck down Trump’s tariffs on Wednesday, concluding his actions were not authorized by the emergency economic powers he cited in signing four executive orders earlier this year — a major blow to his strategy to use tariffs as leverage to strike trade deals around the world. A second federal court issued a similar ruling invalidating Trump’s tariffs on Thursday morning, when a D.C. District Court judge ordered a halt to duties collected from two toy companies that brought the case.
“It’s interesting watching the president flail around here; he proposes tariffs and then he backs off,” said New York Rep. Joe Morelle, a Democrat from the Rochester area along the Canadian border. “If this is people’s idea of a master negotiator, I don’t know what people think a bad negotiator is.”
Wednesday’s decision covered a case filed by Oregon and 11 other Democrat-led states, including Colorado, New York, Illinois and Minnesota, challenging the constitutionality of Trump’s actions. California, the first state to sue over Trump’s tariffs, is challenging his actions in a separate but related lawsuit in U.S. District Court in San Francisco.
The Trump administration immediately appealed the rulings, and a federal appeals court temporarily reinstated his sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs as it considers the administration’s request to leave the tariffs in place while litigation plays out. However, that pause only applies to the ruling from the Court of International Trade.
The economic effects of the rulings are still far from certain. And even as Democratic politicians rejoiced, a pervasive sense that Trump’s trade war could still go wrong permeated the nation’s largest ports in Los Angeles and Long Beach.
Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka told KNX Radio that although the court ruling is encouraging, it added to the “whipsaw effect of information” that has left even the most seasoned international trade experts scrambling.
“It’s not going to open up the gates of American imports just yet,” he said.
Port of Long Beach CEO Mario Cordero shared those concerns, saying shipping companies have told him they need time to assess the potential impacts of the court ruling before deciding whether to bring in more imports.
“We expect the canceled sailings at the Port of Long Beach in June to remain canceled until there is additional clarity about collection of tariffs,” Cordero said in a statement.
Seroka said the port has seen a recent uptick in activity after Trump lowered a 145 percent tariff on Chinese goods to 30 percent, as American importers moved to scoop up products that had already arrived but were sitting on the docks. The initial 145 percent levy resulted in 17 ships canceling bookings and a 30 percent drop in imports over the first two weeks of May.
But it could still be weeks or months until the ports see imports pick up, Seroka warned, and lagging trade comes at a critical time for American businesses, which typically would already have orders placed for Christmas and year-end holiday shopping season.
Still, Democratic officials on Capitol Hill and in states across the country relished the chance to check Trump’s executive powers.
New York Attorney General Letitia James, one of the 12 attorneys general who sued the Trump administration in April, hailed Wednesday’s trade court ruling in a social media post: “The president cannot ignore the Constitution and impose massive tax hikes on the American people.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer sought to reclaim the label Trump put on his tariffs announcement by posting “Liberation Day.”
Xavier Becerra, a Democrat who served as both California attorney general and a member of the House Committee on Ways and Means, which deals extensively with tariffs, noted the weight of the trade court’s ruling coming from a three-judge panel.
“It wasn’t just significant. It was consequential,” Becerra said. “This decision, especially because it was unanimous — and especially because it included two judges appointed by Republicans — I think this crystallized what many of us have said: ‘The president has a lot of authority, but it’s not omnipotent, and he has to respect laws.’”
Becerra, who is running for California governor in 2026, told POLITICO that the result of the judges’ decision will provide a measure of predictability for industry and businesses.
“The president has some authority to help implement or execute on the tariffs, but it’s got to be within those margins,” he said. “And they went way beyond the margins.”
Mike Frerichs, the Democratic Illinois state treasurer, said the rulings could stave off the most severe economic effects of Trump’s tariffs on vulnerable industries, including corn and soybean farmers. Moreover, Frerichs said whiplash with Trump’s trade policies has already undermined his supposed goal to bring manufacturing jobs back to the middle of the country.
“No company is going to make a long-term commitment when there is no belief that they will stay in place,” Frerichs said. “Wall Street has been talking about TACO this week… So why would you shut down a factory in China and move it to the U.S. if, two weeks from now, the tariffs are going to disappear?”
Christopher Cadelago, Liz Crampton, Emily Ngo, Nick Reisman and Shia Kapos contributed to this report.
