U.S.-Based Orange Juice Importer Sues Over Trump's 50% Tariff on Brazilian Goods

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: New York Times

July 21, 2025, 7:09 p.m. ET


A U.S.-based juice company is suing over President Trump’s pledge to impose a steep 50 percent tariff on Brazilian imports starting next month. Johanna Foods Inc., a major importer of orange juice, filed a lawsuit on Friday in the U.S. Court of International Trade in New York, saying that the measure, announced in a July 9 letter from Mr. Trump to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, threatened to upend its business and sharply drive up prices for American consumers.

Mr. Trump has used tariffs aggressively to shape trade policy. In justifying the tariff on Brazil, he cited factors including what he called an unfair trade relationship and a “witch hunt” trial against Brazil’s former right-wing president, Jair Bolsonaro, a close ally.

Johanna Foods’ complaint argues that such factors do not meet the legal threshold for invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977, which gives the president broad authority to regulate international economic transactions during a declared national emergency.
“There is no unusual or extraordinary threat,” the company said in the complaint, pointing to the lack of a formal executive order or declaration of national emergency. The complaint also said that the letter to Mr. Lula did not constitute an executive order. The complaint said the tariffs would increase Johanna Foods’ annual import costs by $68 million and lead to retail price hikes of up to 25 percent. Johanna Beverage Co., a related company based in Washington State, is also listed as a plaintiff.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/21/us/politics/orange-juice-trump-brazil-tariffs.html

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No paywall (gift)

Link to COMPLAINT (PDF) - https://assets.bwbx.io/documents/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/rK.XopmtHIU4/v0

[Vthestate]

1. personal tantrum obviously do not meet the legal threshold

Taking it to court....kinda slow, but better than just being put out of business by a powerful crazed villain. I wonder if I should take the president and his henchmen to court....keep them as tied up as much as possible?

[UpInArms]

2. Every thing TFG does has no basis in fact or law

I am so tired of the media normalizing this maladminstration as anything that should be happening in our country.

This crap is not a mere difference in “policy,” it is outside the bounds of legal, ethical, constitutional and humane.

For anyone to support the lurch to fascism only proves the utter contempt for humanity.

[bucolic_frolic]

3. Johanna, named for the niece of the founders

is still kickin' it

[surrealAmerican]

4. Hmmmm, "the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977" ...

Was this about the automotive industry?

[BumRushDaShow]

5. Here is a good description

The International Emergency Economic Powers Act: Origins, Evolution, and Use

and in particular this part -

(snip)

The Efforts of Congress to Limit Executive Emergency Authorities

By the mid-1970s, following U.S. military involvement in Vietnam, revelations of domestic spying, assassinations of foreign political leaders, the Watergate break-in, and other related abuses of power, Congress increasingly focused on checking the executive branch. The Senate formed a bipartisan special committee chaired by Senators Frank Church and Charles Mathias to reevaluate delegations of emergency authority to the President.47 The special committee issued a report surveying the President's emergency powers in which it asserted that the United States had technically "been in a state of national emergency since March 9, 1933" and that there were four distinct declarations of national emergency in effect.48 The report also noted that the United States had "on the books at least 470 significant emergency statutes without time limitations delegating to the Executive extensive discretionary powers, ordinarily exercised by the Legislature, which affect the lives of American citizens in a host of all-encompassing ways."49

In the course of the Committee's investigations, Senator Mathias, a committee co-chair, noted, "A majority of the people of the United States have lived all of their lives under emergency government." Senator Church, the other co-chair, said the central question before the committee was "whether it [was] possible for a democratic government such as ours to exist under its present Constitution and system of three separate branches equal in power under a continued state of emergency."50

Among the more controversial statutes highlighted by the committee was TWEA. In 1977, during the House markup of a bill revising TWEA, Representative Jonathan Bingham, Chairperson of the House International Relations Committee's Subcommittee on Economic Policy, described TWEA as conferring "on the President what could have been dictatorial powers that he could have used without any restraint by Congress."51 According to the Department of Justice, TWEA granted the President four major groups of powers in a time of war or other national emergency:

(snip)

So it was done to "fix" an earlier law - Trading with the Enemy Act (TWEA) of 1917, which came about as a result of WW1.

[Bengus81]

6. The price of OJ has gone up about 15% where I shop and that was weeks ago.....

A 50% tariff would make a carton about $7.00 where I shop. And of course they'll ALL be charging that much,imported or not. I won't be buying.

[BumRushDaShow]

9. I think most of the domestic juice oranges are grown in FL

where CA has more of the eating (out of hand) types. Between the tariffs and the weather, if some hurricane hits FL citrus country and tears through those trees, all bets are off.

Back in 2004, FL got hit with 4 hurricanes & a tropical storm -



One of them - Charley - tore through a number of citrus groves. It's bad enough that they are often hit with freak frosts and freezes on occasion, although oranges are more cold hardy then fruit like limes (that are mainly grown in the far south of the state).

[moniss]

10. A lot of the Florida/Brazil stuff gets blended anyway as far as juice

especially among the cheaper brands. As always reading labels is crucial.

[Zackzzzz]

11. I buy Frozen and it is from Brazil

There is no more to buy.

NO More OJ for You!!!

[ms liberty]

8. Fla's orange groves have been decimated by disease the last few years

But more retaliation by the big orange man-baby, please.