The US Supreme Court on Friday struck down President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs imposed under a national emergency law, handing the Republican president a significant legal defeat with wide implications for U.S. trade policy and the global economy. In a 6-3 ruling authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, the court upheld lower court decisions that found Trump exceeded his authority by invoking the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose broad import taxes.
“Our task today is to decide only whether the power to ‘regulate ... importation,’ as granted to the president in IEEPA, embraces the power to impose tariffs. It does not,” Roberts wrote, quoting the statute at issue, as quoted by Reuters.
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Roberts added that “the president must ‘point to clear congressional authorization’ to justify his extraordinary assertion of the power to impose tariffs,” concluding: “He cannot.”
The chief justice further wrote that if Congress had intended IEEPA to grant the president “the distinct and extraordinary power to impose tariffs, it would have it would have done so expressly - as it consistently has in other tariff statutes.”
The majority said interpreting the law to allow such sweeping tariffs would intrude on Congress’s constitutional authority and run afoul of the “major questions” doctrine, which requires clear congressional authorization for executive actions of vast economic and political significance. The court previously used that doctrine to block key actions by former President Joe Biden. The three liberal justices did not join the portion of the opinion invoking that doctrine.
The Constitution grants Congress — not the president — the authority to impose taxes and tariffs. Trump became the first president to use IEEPA to impose tariffs, declaring national emergencies tied to trade deficits and drug trafficking. He announced broad “reciprocal” tariffs on April 2, a date he labeled “Liberation Day,” targeting most U.S. trading partners.
The three dissenting justices were Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh wrote that IEEPA’s text and history supported the administration’s position.
“Like quotas and embargoes, tariffs are a traditional and common tool to regulate importation,” Kavanaugh wrote. “The tariffs at issue here may or may not be wise policy,” he added. “But as a matter of text, history, and precedent, they are clearly lawful. I respectfully dissent.”
Kavanaugh warned the ruling could create uncertainty for trade agreements, writing: “Because IEEPA tariffs have helped facilitate trade deals worth trillions of dollars—including with foreign nations from China to the United Kingdom to Japan, the Court's decision could generate uncertainty regarding various trade agreements.”
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