• The Supreme CourtruledFriday that Donald Trump was not authorized to implement emergency tariffs to ostensibly block illegal drug flows and offset trade deficits. • It’s not immediately clear what the ruling may mean for businesses that paid various “reciprocal” tariffs that Trump changed frequently, raising and lowering rates at will during tense negotiations with the United States’ biggest trade partners. • Divided 6-3, Supreme Court justices remanded the cases to lower courts, concluding that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) does not give Trump power to impose tariffs. • Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion and was joined by Justices Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson. • They concluded that Trump could not exclusively rely on IEEPA to impose tariffs “of unlimited amount and duration, on any product from any country” during peacetime. • Only Congress has the power of the purse, Roberts wrote, and the few exceptions to that are bound by “explicit terms and subject to strict limits.” “Against that backdrop of clear and limited delegations, the Government reads IEEPA to give the President power to unilaterally impose unbounded tariffs and change them at will,” Roberts wrote.
Article Summaries:
- The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Friday that former President Donald Trump lacked the authority to impose “emergency” tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). In a 6‑3 decision written by Chief Justice John Roberts and joined by Justices Gorsuch, Barrett, Kagan, Sotomayor and Jackson, the Court remanded the cases to lower courts, finding that IEEPA does not grant the President unlimited, peacetime tariff powers. The ruling casts doubt on the legality of tariffs Trump applied to curb drug flows and trade deficits. Analysts now estimate that more than $175 billion in tariffs may need to be refunded to businesses that paid the rates.
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