Donald Trump’s pleas to the Supreme Court to uphold his sweeping tariffs on imports from around the world are getting increasingly desperate.
For weeks, the president has issued panicked late-night calls urging the court to rule in favor of the tariffs, which have emerged as both Trump’s signature economic policy and as his favorite cudgel for influencing foreign rivals’ domestic policies.
Now, with a decision expected to come down at any time, he’s warning that only “dark and sinister forces” would want to put an end to the tariffs.
“Because of Tariffs, easily and quickly applied, our National Security has been greatly enhanced, and we have become the financially strongest Country, by far, anywhere in the World. Only dark and sinister forces would want to see that end!!!” he wrote on Truth Social at 2:45 a.m. Washington time.
The post was clearly directed at the Supreme Court, because not even 10 minutes earlier the president had written in a separate missive, “The biggest threat in history to United States National Security would be a negative decision on Tariffs by the U.S. Supreme Court. We would be financially defenseless.”
The justices heard oral arguments last month in a case challenging the president’s authority to unilaterally impose the tariffs. The duties are a type of import tax paid by U.S. companies, which must eat the costs or pass them along to consumers in the form of higher prices.
Although the Constitution give Congress the power of taxation, the administration has argued the tariffs are valid under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act after Trump declared a national economic emergency in April.
But during oral arguments, two key conservative justices sounded skeptical about the government’s position, leading to late-night rumination and intensive social media lobbying on the part of the president.
Trump often describes the tariffs in existential terms, arguing on Truth Social that striking down the taxes would amount to “serving hostile foreign interests,” unleashing an “insurmountable National Security Event.” and reducing the U.S. to “almost Third World status.”
Even by those high rhetorical standards, the “dark and sinister forces” warning represents a newly apocalyptic turn.
Despite the president’s claims that import taxes are the only thing holding the country together, the duties are so unpopular that some Republicans are secretly hoping the Supreme Court will rein them in, Semafor reported in October.
With inflation holding steady and Christmas presents set to cost more this year thanks to the tariffs, voters overwhelmingly disapprove of the duties, CNN’s numbers guru Harry Enten revealed earlier this month.
Over the past 11 months, favorability on tariffs has swung from +4 to -24, with 62 percent of Americans now opposing the duties.
“When the No. 1 issue in the country right now is inflation, is affordability, and folks believe that a signature policy of yours increases prices?” Enten said. “That is no good.”
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