Recommendations of the Editorial team
The Supreme Court on Friday overturned large parts of US President Donald Trump’s international customs agenda and restricted them This significantly affected one of the central political projects of his second term in office.
In a 6-3 decision, the court found that Trump and his administration had exceeded their authority to impose tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), a 1977 law. The law allows the president to regulate certain aspects of international trade during a declared national emergency.
The court did not prescribe any specific requirements or methods by which the administration would be forced to roll back the hundreds of tariffs it has imposed on trading partners around the world, but it made clear that Trump had acted outside the law in doing so.
Justification of the court
“The President claims extraordinary power to unilaterally impose tariffs of unlimited amount, duration, and scope,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote in the court’s majority opinion. “Given the breadth, historical development, and constitutional context of this claimed power, he must identify clear statutory authority for Congress to exercise it.”
“The administration reads the IEEPA as giving the president the power to unilaterally impose unlimited tariffs and change them at will. This reading would represent a fundamental expansion of presidential authority over tariff policy,” Roberts added. “It is also remarkable that in the five decades of IEEPA’s existence, no president has used the law to impose tariffs – let alone tariffs of this scope and scope.”
Roberts pointed to Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution, which gives Congress the power “to lay and collect taxes, duties, customs, and excises.”
Constitutional framework
“We do not claim any special expertise in economic or foreign policy issues,” added Roberts. “We merely assert, as we must, the limited role assigned to us by Article III of the Constitution. In fulfilling that role, we hold that the IEEPA does not authorize the President to impose tariffs.”
Trump was said to have been informed of the decision during a meeting with governors at the White House and called it a “disgrace.”
Trump announced a comprehensive tariff package at an event in the White House last April and imposed a series of high import taxes on countries around the world. The President continued to use tariffs or the threat of tariffs to pressure other nations to comply with his demands. Economists sharply criticized Trump’s tariff policy because it effectively amounted to a tax on American consumers. “This is a victory for the wallets of every American consumer,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) said in response to the ruling.
Political reactions
Trump continued to defend the tariffs and expressed confidence Thursday that the Supreme Court would rule in his favor. “Without tariffs, what would you do? You know what? Everyone would be bankrupt, the whole country would be bankrupt,” he said at an event in Georgia. “I’ve been waiting forever [auf diese Entscheidung]. The wording is clear that as president I have the right to do this.”
The Supreme Court disagrees.
