Law Professor’s Take on SCOTUS Tariff Decision Will Anger Dems

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday blocked President Donald Trump from using an emergency law to impose high tariffs on most U.S. trading partners without the consent of Congress. The president suffered a significant setback in a case concerning one of his primary economic policies, which he deemed crucial for the U.S. economy.

The justices ruled 6-3 that Trump’s tariffs were not valid. Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito, and Clarence Thomas disagreed.

“The Framers gave that power to ‘Congress alone’ — notwithstanding the obvious foreign affairs implications of tariffs,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority. “And whatever may be said of other powers that implicate foreign affairs, we would not expect Congress to relinquish its tariff power through vague language, or without careful limits.”

Roberts noted that Trump used “two words” that were “separated by 16 others” in the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), “regulate” and “importation,” to justify that he had the “independent power to impose tariffs on imports from any country, of any product, at any rate, for any amount of time.”

“Those words cannot bear such weight,” Roberts wrote.

However, George Washington University Law School professor and legal scholar Jonathan Turley said this isn’t over. The administration can still impose tariffs through other statutes.

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