A US food importer has filed a proposed class action challenging the administration’s use of a rarely invoked 1930 trade provision to impose 50 per cent duties on Canadian goods.
Gellert Global Group Corporation lodged the complaint in the US Court of International Trade against President Donald Trump and federal customs and trade officials. The case attacks duties imposed under section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, a provision that permits a response to discriminatory treatment of US commerce by a foreign country.
The complaint alleges that section 338 cannot lawfully carry the tariff programme. Gellert argues that later trade legislation, particularly section 301, supplies the controlling process for ordinary trade disputes and includes procedural protections the administration did not follow. It also raises a nondelegation claim and contends that the cited Canadian measures do not amount to the kind of discrimination section 338 addresses.
The company says the government compounded those defects when it added cheese to the covered products on 8 September and began collecting the duty on 15 September. According to the pleading, section 338 requires a 30-day interval before a proclamation takes effect.
Gellert describes itself as an importer of about $71 million in Canadian cheese during 2025 and seeks to represent other importers that paid the challenged duties. It asks the court to declare the measures unlawful, stop future collection and order refunds with interest.
The allegations have not been adjudicated, and the defendants have not yet answered in the docket material reviewed for this report. The filing therefore begins the case; it is not a ruling on the president’s tariff authority. Its broader importance lies in testing whether section 338 can support a modern, wide-ranging tariff programme without the procedures Congress later established for trade retaliation.
