Lawyer challenging Trump’s trade war says tariffs are ‘illegal and abusive’

WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump’s global trade war is an “illegal and abusive” use of power, said a lawyer representing small businesses who are challenging the tariffs. George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin, along with the Liberty Justice Center, represents five American small businesses who had a hearing before the U.S. Court of International Trade last week in an effort to block Trump’s sweeping “reciprocal” tariff agenda. “He’s sort of breaking various precedents and doing things which are highly illegal and obviously our contention is that this is highly illegal,” Somin said in an interview Thursday. The president…