The court on Friday upended one of Trump’s top priorities in his second term as president, deciding in a blockbuster ruling that his imposition of sweeping global tariffs on nearly every US trading partner exceeded his powers under federal law.
The ruling, authored by conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, did not waffle in its scope or effect, or leave questions about the legality of the tariffs to another day. It unswervingly struck them down, making no mention of the consequences for refunds, trade deals or the Republican president himself.
In doing so, the court also reasserted its role as a check on the other branches of government, including the president, after a year when numerous critics and legal scholars had increasingly voiced doubts.
“The court has shown it will not necessarily provide legal cover for every plank of Trump’s platform,” said Peter Shane, an expert in constitutional law and the presidency at New York University School of Law.
The justices in the 6-3 decision upheld a lower court’s ruling that Trump’s use of a 1977 law called the International Emergency Economic Powers Act – or IEEPA – did not grant him the power he claimed to impose tariffs, something no president had previously tried to do under the statute.
In no uncertain terms, Roberts wrote in the ruling that Trump’s argument that a particular phrase in the law’s text gave him power to impose tariffs was wrong.
“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. It does not,” Roberts wrote.
“The decision shows that the Supreme Court is serious about policing the scope of power delegated to the president by Congress,” said Jonathan Adler, a professor at William & Mary Law School in Virginia.
“The president cannot just pour new wine out of old bottles,” Adler added. “If there are problems current statutes do not address, the president must ask Congress for a newer vintage.”
The court has a 6-3 conservative majority, but the ruling was not split along ideological lines. Roberts and fellow conservative justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett – both appointed by Trump in his first term – joined the court’s three liberal members to strike down his tariffs. Three other conservative justices dissented.
Trump pulled no punches in rejoinder, casting the decision in extraordinarily personal terms and reserving special wrath for the Republican appointees including his own who ruled against him, calling them “fools” and “lapdogs” for Democrats.
“They’re very unpatriotic and disloyal to our Constitution,” Trump told reporters, adding, “It’s my opinion that the court has been swayed by foreign interests.”
