The Supreme Court cast serious doubts about President Donald Trump’s ability to impose sweeping tariffs and slapped down a series of arguments made by the administration on Wednesday despite Trump calling the case “literally, LIFE OR DEATH for our Country.”
The justices must decide whether Trump’s use of emergency powers to impose widespread tariffs on imports from more than 100 countries around the globe is legal.
It’s a case that will have dramatic consequences for American consumers and businesses, as well as the president’s power.
During the arguments, the justices, including Trump appointees, appeared deeply skeptical. There were several tense exchanges where they delivered harsh rebukes to U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer’s arguments on behalf of the government.
Chief Justice John Roberts, a key vote, was quick to bring up that the ability to impose taxes “has always been a core power of Congress” and said the central questions doctrine, a legal principle that requires Congress to grant federal agencies explicit authority to act, appeared to apply in the case.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a Trump appointee, asked a series of pointed questions about whether there were statutes that bestow tariff authority and appeared unsatisfied with Sauer’s answers.
First, she asked him to point to any time in history where “regulate importation” was used to “confer tariff importing authority.” She did not like his answer. Moments later, she said none of the cited cases talked about it as “conferring tariff authority.”
Justice Neil Gorsuch, another Trump appointee, also brutally grilled the solicitor general. He wanted to know where the administration would draw the line on the president’s authority in foreign affairs and on Congress’s delegation of the power to act.
Gorsuch said he was struggling with the administration’s argument and even warned of a “one-way ratchet toward the gradual but continual accretion of power in the executive branch and away from the people’s elected representatives.”
When Trump imposed his tariffs, he did so by declaring an emergency—namely, the trade deficit the U.S. was running with foreign countries.
The Trump administration argued that Trump’s tariffs were necessary to reduce that deficit and promote American manufacturing, but his actions have been challenged by more than a dozen states and small businesses.
At the heart of the president’s action was a 1970s law, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which he invoked to set his tariffs. The law grants the president the authority to regulate or prohibit transactions involving foreign interests during a declared national emergency.
While the government argued the uncorrected trade imbalances have brought the U.S. to the “brink of a major economic and national-security catastrophe,” those challenging the tariffs argued that the move encroached on Congress’s power to impose taxes and that Congress did “not delegate the power to tariff” with the 1977 law.
Arguing against the tariffs before the court on behalf of small businesses, attorney Neil Katyal claimed Congress did not hand over the power for the president to overhaul the tariff system when it passed IEEPA.
“Tariffs are taxes,” he said in opening. “They take dollars from Americans’ pockets and deposit them in the U.S. Treasury. Our founders gave that taxing power to Congress alone.”
While Sauer, Trump’s former personal lawyer, had argued the issue at hand was not about Congress’s power to tax but the president’s ability to regulate foreign powers and that raising revenue was “only incidental,” Katyal fiercely disputed that, noting the government’s own brief said it was “going to raise $4 trillion.”
Katyal accused Trump of bypassing Congress to impose one of the largest tax increases “in our lifetimes.”
In an unusual turn for the Trump administration, a number of the briefs in support of the challengers included ones from conservatives, libertarian and business groups who oppose the tariffs.
While Trump has suggested a loss in the court would be catastrophic, members of his administration have suggested they have other options should the Supreme Court rule against him.
Katyal acknowledged there were other tariff authorities the administration could use should the court rule against the president.
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