Wisconsin has joined over 20 states challenging the Trump administration’s tariffs in a lawsuit filed to block new tariffs on imported goods, according to a press release.
Attorney General Josh Kaul and Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers announced March 5 that the state would join a multistate coalition filing a lawsuit to block the Trump Administration’s 10% tariff on imported goods, according to the press release.
The press release states that the recent actions by the Trump administration are unlawful, breach constitutional separation of powers and violate the Administrative Procedure Act.
“At a time when so many people are concerned about affordability challenges, President Trump’s tariffs have made the situation worse,” AG Kaul wrote in the press release, “The unlawful use of tariffs should stop.”
The Trump administration announced these new tariffs in February after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that previous tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act were unconstitutional, according to Wisconsin Public Radio.
The Trump Administration reports that the tariffs are proposed to address international payment problems and will benefit American workers, farmers and manufacturers, according to a fact sheet.
The new 15% duty on most global products is justified under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 to address trade deficits – lawmakers say Section 122 does not apply, according to the lawsuit.
The tariffs proposed by the Administration will not improve outcomes for American businesses or consumers, according to professor of applied economics at UW Steven Deller. The motivation behind the Trump administration’s push for tariffs is to lower this trade deficit by taxing the flow of global imports to foster growth of U.S. industrial markets, according to Deller.
“What the trade deficit is essentially, is we are buying a lot of stuff that is made in China, and China is not buying nearly as much stuff from us,” Deller said. “But the thing is, that consumers have benefitted from that because the cost of a lot of manufactured goods has been broken down and been reasonably priced.”
The U.S. market is too specialized to keep consumer costs down as a result of these tariffs, according to Deller.
Manufacturing firms in the country struggle to attract labor and cut costs, according to Deller. Low labor costs and large manufacturing industries in countries like China and Mexico allow low-cost goods to be purchased by U.S. consumers, according to Deller.
“You can’t just whipsaw policies like this because it creates uncertainty,” Deller said, “Trump thinks that you’re going to impose all these tariffs and suddenly all these manufacturing jobs are just going to come back to the U.S. They’re not.”
The new 15% tariff on imported goods will make the global market unpredictable, which affects local businesses, according to Deller.
Wisconsin businesses paid an estimated $3.9 billion in tariffs from March 2025 through January 2026, according to We Pay the Tariffs.
“Tariffs in general are not good economic policy,” Deller said in an email statement. “It’s the uncertainty that these on-gain, off-again tariffs is creating. Increases in uncertainty can put strong brakes on the economy. People and businesses are unclear (uncertain) on what is happening, so they pull back on major new investments.”
This uncertainty further affects the local consumer, with additional tariffs impacting prices for daily expenses like groceries, housing and healthcare in Wisconsin, according to both Deller and assosciate professor of applied economics at UW Charles Nicholson.
“One of the things that’s been a real hallmark of the tariff since they were first implemented early last year has been that they varied quite a lot,” Nicholson said. “This uncertainty alone is very difficult for many businesses, including farm businesses, including manufacturing businesses in Wisconsin, to try and navigate when the rules of the game are always sort of changing quite a lot.”
Nearly 90% of the cost of tariffs in 2025 was paid by American consumers and businesses, according to research by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
“We are seeing the ‘cost of living’ inflating,” Deller said in an email statement. “You can think of a tariff like a sales tax. You go to the grocery store, and some of the things you need to buy has a sales tax. Now a tariff is like adding a very large sales tax on top of that.”
The multistate lawsuit will be heard by the specialized Court of International Trade, which struck down the use of the emergency-powers tariffs that Trump didn’t need because Section 122 was available to combat trade deficits, according to the Associated Press.
Joining the lawsuit with Wisconsin are the attorneys general of Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and the governors of Kentucky and Pennsylvania, according to the lawsuit.
“President Trump has invoked this statute to impose immense and ever-changing tariffs on whatever goods entering the U.S. he chooses and for whatever reasons he finds convenient,” the coalition said in the lawsuit. “The President has once again exercised tariff authority that he does not have—involving a statute that does not authorize the tariffs he has imposed—to upend the constitutional order and bring chaos to the global economy.
