The president exceeded his authority when he imposed import taxes on almost every country in the world
The US Supreme Court has ruled that President Donald Trump’s use of emergency powers to impose a sweeping global tariff regime is unconstitutional, in a decision that will rob Trump of a vital tool of economic leverage.
In a 6-3 decision on Friday, the court declared that Trump exceeded his authority when he invoked the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) last year to justify tariffs against Canada, China, and Mexico in February, and then against almost every country in the world in April.
”Our task today is to decide only whether the power to ‘regulate… importation’, as granted to the president in IEEPA, embraces the power to impose tariffs,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the ruling, concluding that “it does not.”
The US Constitution grants Congress the power to set taxes and tariffs. However, the IEEPA allows the president to “regulate…importation or exportation” of “property in which any foreign country or a national thereof has any interest” during times of national emergency. Trump claimed that drug trafficking from Canada, China, and Mexico constituted a national emergency justifying the IEEPA, and when it came time to impose global tariffs, that the US’ trade deficits with other countries amounted to an “extraordinary and unusual threat.”
Friday’s ruling was celebrated by the US Chamber of Commerce, which called it “welcome news for businesses and consumers.” Bernd Lange, chairman of the European Parliament’s international trade committee, said that the decision is a “positive signal for the rule of law.” Last month, Trump threatened to punish multiple EU countries with tariffs beyond those set out in last year’s US-EU trade deal over their opposition to his planned annexation of Greenland.
Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito, and Clarence Thomas dissented with the majority. “Like quotas and embargoes, tariffs are a traditional and common tool to regulate importation,” Kavanaugh wrote in the dissent. Kavanaugh added that the ruling would create “serious practical consequences” for importers who have already paid the tariffs, and pointed out that Trump can still utilize other statutes to reimpose his tariffs.
”President Trump has plenty of tools in the tariff toolbox,” his chief of protocol, Monica Crowley, wrote on X after the ruling was announced. “Don’t be a Panican! Trust Trump.”
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