New Delhi, May 29 -- The United States government has told a court that any ruling impeding President Donald Trump's use of emergency powers to invoke tariffs would imperil foreign policy arrangements across the world, including the May 10 ceasefire between India and Pakistan that it said was "achieved only after" both nations were offered "trading access with the US to avert a full-scale war".

US secretary of commerce Howard W Lutnick made the submission on May 23, in a lawsuit filed by attorneys general of 12 Democrat-ruled states against Trump and a clutch of US departments in the US Court of International Trade. The states argued that the President's use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to slap steep tariffs...