The Supreme Court ruled President Donald Trump does not have the legal authority to impose sweeping global tariffs without congressional approval, upending one of his key policies and issuing a rare constraint on his attempts to expand presidential powers.
The Supreme Court has a 6-3 conservative majority that has regularly backed Trump on various contentious cases since he took office, but based on oral arguments in November, the tariffs dispute seemed to be leaning the other way, with the justices indicating Trump may not have the authority to impose tariffs under a law designed for use during a national emergency.
The legal question was whether a 1977 law called the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, which allows the president to regulate imports when there is a national emergency, extends the power to impose global tariffs of unspecified duration and breadth.
The Constitution states that the power to set tariffs is assigned to Congress. The 1977 law, which does not specifically mention tariffs, says the president can "regulate" imports and exports when he deems there to be an emergency, which occurs when there is an "unusual and extraordinary threat" to the nation.
Trump invoked the law to impose so-called "reciprocal" tariffs on goods imported from nearly every foreign trading partner to address what he called a national emergency related to U.S. trade deficits.
Until Trump began his second term in January, no president had ever used the law to set tariffs on imports. Lower courts ruled against the Trump administration, with both sides asking the Supreme Court to issue a definitive ruling.
The court heard the case on an expedited basis and consolidated two underlying challenges brought by small businesses affected by the tariffs and a coalition of states.
So far Trump has realised over $292bn from the tariffs