When President Trump unveiled his initial slate of punishing tariffs in April, he fashioned the announcement as a critical moment in a dawning global trade war, describing it as “the day America’s destiny was reclaimed.”
Five months later, his gambit could be in peril, after the Supreme Court agreed on Tuesday to hear a case challenging the legality of Mr. Trump’s actions. Now his administration is confronting the potential loss of a powerful tool at the heart of his second-term strategy, one that has allowed the president to force concessions from companies, allies and adversaries.
The case itself concerns Mr. Trump’s novel use of a decades-old economic emergency law to impose duties around the world, despite the fact that the statute does not explicitly allow for the president to tax imports. Multiple courts have ruled against the administration, prompting it to appeal to the nation’s justices in the hopes they will agree with Mr. Trump’s expansive interpretation of his own authorities.
For Mr. Trump, who has deployed tariffs to try to raise revenue, increase manufacturing and pressure countries into striking favorable deals, any ruling on his trade powers could prove highly consequential. The ability to issue unbridled duties is central to his presidency, serving as both the carrot and stick for a variety of political, economic and diplomatic objectives.
Mr. Trump has described tariffs as an inducement for ending foreign conflicts, including the war between Russia and Ukraine, and for halting the flow of illegal drugs into the United States. He has pitched the revenue collected from duties as a way to reduce the roughly $37 trillion federal debt and as an offset to the budget-busting tax cuts he enacted earlier this year.
The president has also targeted foreign goods in a bid to change other countries’ laws, and threatened tariffs this month to protect Google and other U.S. tech giants facing fines abroad. Mr. Trump has even sought to harness tariffs to aid political allies like Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s former president, who is being prosecuted for inciting a coup.
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