President Trump has taken an expansive view of his authority to levy tariffs in his second term trade war with nearly every U.S. trading partner.

Calling on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the Trump administration has imposed tariffs at rates not seen since the 1930s, claiming to address a national emergency caused by fentanyl trafficked across the border and persistent trade deficits.

Defending those actions, on Monday, Trump’s Justice Department entered an extraordinary letter into the tariff litigation now before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which will soon issue a ruling.

That letter points to a recurrent theme in Trump’s trade approach, a weak legal foundation for his actions papered over with an even more flimsy rationale for preserving it.

The letter from Solicitor General D. John Sauer and Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate claims that President Trump’s July announcement of “the largest trade agreement in history” with the European Union, plus other recent deals with Indonesia, the Philippines, Japan and the United Kingdom, proved the tariffs should stay in place.

That argument might make for a good press release. But in a court of law, it’s entirely beside the point.

The central question before the court isn’t whether the........

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