Donald Trump is desperately hoping the Supreme Court will swoop in and salvage his sweeping tariff plans by overturning a previous ruling that declared most of them illegal.
The Trump administration filed a petition on Wednesday asking the nation’s highest court to intervene in a lower federal appeals court ruling that found the president had overstepped his authority when he cited a 1977 law designed to address threats amid a national emergency to justify his reciprocal tariffs.
The request sets up a potentially explosive showdown between Trump and the Supreme Court—which includes three conservative justices he appointed to the bench— as the decisions will see if Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs will move forward or see the president suffer a humiliating defeat.
The outcome will also have broader implications for the U.S. economy and global trade routes, depending on the Supreme Court’s decision.
“The stakes in this case could not be higher,” Solicitor General D. John Saue wrote in court filings, via The Washington Post.
“The President and his Cabinet officials have determined that the tariffs are promoting peace and unprecedented economic prosperity, and that the denial of tariff authority would expose our nation to trade retaliation without effective defenses and thrust America back to the brink of economic catastrophe.”
On Aug. 29, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that Trump could not cite the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose tariffs on dozens of countries.
The law allows the president to act on an “unusual and extraordinary threat” amid a national emergency and has historically been used to impose sanctions or freeze assets of adversaries.
The court concluded that the law does not include the power to “impose tariffs, duties, or the like, or the power to tax,” declaring most of Trump’s tariffs illegal. However, the ruling allowed the administration time to appeal to the Supreme Court.
Writing for Politico, former federal prosecutor Ankush Khardori suggested that Trump is essentially trying to “blackmail” the court into bailing him out by ensuring that his centerpiece economic plans survive.
“The most charitable interpretation of the effort is that the administration is lobbying the Supreme Court to engage in the sort of outcome-driven judicial activism that conservatives have long claimed to hate,” Khardori wrote.
“A less generous read of the situation is that this is an effort to politically blackmail the court into giving Trump what he wants, even if it is clearly unlawful or unconstitutional.”
Economists have long warned that Trump’s tariffs could raise consumer costs, increase inflation, and disrupt supply chains.
Jeffrey Schwab, senior counsel and director of litigation at the Liberty Justice Center, said Trump’s plans are already “inflicting serious harm on small businesses and jeopardizing their survival,” while urging the courts to strike them down.
“We hope for a prompt resolution of this case for our clients,” Schwab said, via the Associated Press.
The administration is asking the Supreme Court to decide by September 10 whether to consider the appeal and has urged the court to schedule oral arguments for the first week of November.
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