Supreme Court Rules Against Trump In Emergency Tariffs Cases

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Friday that President Trump’s imposition of tariffs under an emergency economics law is unlawful. The decision was 6-3, with Associate Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh dissenting.

“[The International Emergency Economic Powers Act] IEEPA does not authorize the President to impose tariffs,” the court ruled.

The ruling pertains to a pair of consolidated cases known as Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump and Trump v. V.O.S. Solutions, Inc., which center around legal challenges to Trump’s use of IEEPA to impose tariffs on goods from foreign countries making their way into the United States. As The Federalist previously described, the president did so “in response to existing ‘unfair trade practices’ that lead to trade deficits, as well as to punish countries like China for failing to ‘blunt the sustained influx of synthetic opioids, including fentanyl, flowing from the [People’s Republic of China] to the United States.’”

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts argued that Trump’s reliance on the words “regulate” and “importation” to justify his tariffs under IEEPA “cannot bear such weight.”

“Absent from [IEEPA’s] lengthy list of powers is any mention of tariffs or duties. That omission is notable in light of the significant but specific powers Congress did go to the trouble of naming,” Roberts wrote. “It stands to reason that had Congress intended to convey the distinct and extraordinary power to impose tariffs, it would have done so expressly — as it consistently has in other tariff statutes.”

The chief justice went on to argue that the administration’s reliance on the phrase “regulate … importation” “does not fill” such a “void,” and asserted that the court is “therefore skeptical that in IEEPA — and IEEPA alone — Congress hid a delegation of its birth-right power to tax within the quotidian power to ‘regulate.’”

“We do not attempt to set forth the metes and bounds of the President’s authority to ‘regulate … importation’ under IEEPA. That ‘interpretive question’ is ‘not at issue’ in this case, and any answer would be ‘plain dicta,’” Roberts wrote. “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.”

Associate Justices Neil Gorsuch Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett each filed concurrences. Associate Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson each filed opinions concurring “in part and concurring in the judgement,” with Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Jackson also joining the former’s opinion.

Writing for the principal dissent, Kavanaugh strongly disagreed with the majority’s decision and argued that “[s]tatutory text, history, and precedent demonstrate that the answer” to the “sole legal question” of whether Trump can impose tariffs under IEEPA “is clearly yes.” He noted that, “Like quotas and embargoes, tariffs are a traditional and common tool to regulate importation.”

“The plaintiffs argue and the Court concludes that the President lacks authority under IEEPA to impose tariffs. I disagree. In accord with Judge Taranto’s careful and persuasive opinion in the Federal Circuit, I would conclude that the President’s power under IEEPA to ‘regulate … importation’ encompasses tariffs,” Kavanaugh wrote. “As a matter of ordinary meaning, including dictionary definitions and historical usage, the broad power to ‘regulate … importation’ includes the traditional and common means to do so — in particular, quotas, embargoes, and tariffs.”

Kavanaugh went on to blast the majority’s nonsensical argument that IEEPA “does not authorize the President to employ the lesser power of tariffs, which simply condition imports on a payment,” despite its acknowledgement that the statute “authorizes the President to impose quotas or embargoes on foreign imports — meaning that a President could completely block some or all imports.”

“As [plaintiffs and the court] interpret the statute, the President could, for example, block all imports from China but cannot order even a $1 tariff on goods imported from China. That approach does not make much sense,” Kavanaugh wrote. “Properly read, IEEPA does not draw such an odd distinction between quotas and embargoes on the one hand and tariffs on the other. Rather, it empowers the President to regulate imports during national emergencies with the tools Presidents have traditionally and commonly used, including quotas, embargoes, and tariffs.”

Thomas also penned a separate dissent, in which he similarly argued that “In today’s cases, neither the statutory text nor the Constitution provide a basis for ruling against the President.”

Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He is a co-recipient of the 2025 Dao Prize for Excellence in Investigative Journalism. His work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics and RealClearHealth. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood