Colorado-based shoemaker Crocs, Inc. slapped the Trump administration with a $54 million lawsuit, claiming the president overstepped his authority with emergency tariffs that have cost the company hundreds of millions over the last two consecutive quarters.
The footwear giant filed the suit Friday in the U.S. Court of International Trade in New York City, naming U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the U.S. Department of Treasury, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the Denver Business Journal reported. Trump administration officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, were also named in the action seeking $54 million in tariff refunds.
The lawsuit challenges the administration’s emergency tariffs, arguing that the law Trump cited in his April order does not authorize the president to levy tariffs and that the so-called national emergency was not a genuine emergency and did not involve an “unusual or extraordinary threat,” the lawsuit states, as per the Business Journal.
The company is hoping to recover the $54 million in duties it has already paid, plus interest. It also wants to protect itself from future unauthorized tariffs should the Supreme Court rule that they, in fact, were illegal. Since 2019, Crocs has begun to dial back Chinese production and warned that continued high tariffs could prompt a full relocation of its production.
Crocs is the latest major corporation to challenge Trump-era tariffs, following similar suits from Costco, Revlon, and Kawasaki Motors.
The hundreds of millions of dollars lost by Crocs is a major reversal of years of steady profitability, the Business Journal added in its Monday report.