Supreme Court Justices Question Trump’s Sweeping Tariff Powers

The Central Legal Question: Does the Power To ‘Regulate’ Include Authority to Tariff?

The Supreme Court on Wednesday heard arguments about the legality of President Trump’s use of emergency powers to impose tariffs on imports from virtually every trading partner around the world.

The case has the potential to force the Trump administration to rethink its approach to trade and tariffs, as several conservative justices joined their liberal colleagues in questioning President Trump’s authority to impose tariffs.

At issue is whether Mr. Trump properly invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) of 1977, a law that gives presidents broad authority during national emergencies, to levy tariffs he says are necessary to address trade deficits, pressure other countries to help the U.S. combat fentanyl smuggling, and protect American manufacturing.

The case has enormous implications for American businesses and consumers, as well as for Mr. Trump’s economic agenda. The president has made tariffs a centerpiece of his trade policy, using them to pressure foreign governments and bring manufacturing back to the United States.

During nearly three hours of oral arguments, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Neil M. Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett — all members of the court’s conservative majority — posed skeptical questions to D. John Sauer, the Solicitor General arguing on behalf of the administration.

Chief Justice Roberts said the case appeared to implicate the “major questions doctrine,” a legal principle requiring Congress to speak clearly when delegating significant economic authority to the executive branch. If that doctrine applies, it would likely be fatal to the tariffs because IEEPA does not specify that the president may impose tariffs to deal with an emergency.

“The vehicle is the imposition of taxes on Americans, and that has always been a core power of Congress,” Chief Justice Roberts said, questioning why the emergency law should be read to grant such sweeping authority when it never explicitly mentions tariffs.

Justice Barrett pressed Sauer on why tariffs had to apply so broadly.

“I mean, these are kind of across the board,” she said. “Spain? France? I mean, I could see it with some countries but explain to me why so many needed to be subject to the reciprocal tariff policy.”

Justice Gorsuch warned of “a one-way ratchet toward the gradual but continual accretion of power in the executive branch and away from the people’s elected representatives” in Congress, suggesting that accepting the administration’s interpretation could cross a constitutional line.

The case turns on whether the word “regulate” in the 1977 emergency law encompasses the power to impose tariffs. The statute authorizes the president to “regulate” the “importation” of foreign property during a national emergency but does not explicitly mention tariffs, taxes, or duties.

Sauer said the statute’s reference to regulating imports implicitly included tariffs, arguing that any revenue they generate is merely “incidental” to their regulatory purpose. He repeatedly emphasized that the U.S. has traditionally used tariffs to regulate imports. He also argued that Congress should be given more leeway to delegate power to the president when it comes to foreign trade.

But Neal K. Katyal, representing small businesses challenging the tariffs, countered that tariffs are taxes, and that the Constitution gives the taxing power exclusively to Congress. When Congress has intended to delegate tariff authority, he said, it has done so explicitly and with clear limits.

“It’s simply implausible that Congress handed the president the power to overhaul the entire tariff system and the American economy,” Katyal said.

Katyal insisted that while Congress did not mean to include tariffs when it gave the president power to regulate imports in an emergency. He added that Congress could delegate some authority to impose tariffs—as it has under other statutes—it must do so under strict guidance that includes “intelligible principles” and limitations, echoing language that the Supreme Court has used when discussing a frequently mentioned but typically dormant legal doctrine known as “nondelegation.”

The liberal justices appeared uniformly skeptical of the government’s position. Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the power to tax “is a congressional power, not a presidential power.” Justice Elena Kagan emphasized that both the taxing and commerce powers belong to Congress under the Constitution.

Emergency Declaration and Trade Deficits

President Trump invoked the emergency law in April to impose a baseline 10 percent tariff on imports from every country, with higher rates on dozens of nations. He declared that “large and persistent” trade deficits constitute “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and economy of the United States.”

The justices did not directly question whether trade deficits constitute an emergency. Instead, they focused narrowly on whether the statute itself authorizes tariffs as a tool to address such an emergency.

Trump first used the emergency law in February to impose tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China, saying they had failed to stop the flow of fentanyl and illegal immigrants into the United States, before expanding the tariffs globally in April.

The administration has warned that a loss at the Supreme Court could force it to unwind trade deals and refund billions of dollars in collected tariffs — a scenario  Sauer said could trigger economic catastrophe.

Katyal told the justices the court has many options for structuring relief, including limiting its decision “to prospective relief” — striking down the tariffs going forward but not requiring refunds for duties already paid.

If the court rules against the administration, President Trump would still have other legal tools for tariffs, though with tighter constraints. The administration has already used Section 232 of a 1962 trade law, which allows tariffs on national security grounds after an investigation, to tax roughly a third of U.S. imports including cars, lumber, and metals.

The case reached the Supreme Court after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled 7–4 in August that the emergency law did not authorize tariffs of such magnitude. That court declined to decide whether more limited tariffs might be permissible under the statute.

Broader Political Context

The case has produced unusual political alignments. Of 44 friend-of-the-court briefs filed, 37 supported the challengers, including submissions from conservative and libertarian groups such as the Cato Institute and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, as well as a bipartisan group of former officials.

The challengers include a dozen states and small businesses such as VOS Selections, a wine importer, and Learning Resources, an educational toy company. Hundreds of other firms have joined filings saying the tariffs forced them to raise prices and cut staff.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent attended Wednesday’s arguments, underscoring the administration’s view of the case as pivotal. President Trump had initially said he might attend before deciding against it to avoid becoming “a distraction.”

The court is expected to issue a decision within weeks or months. Based on the justices’ questioning, several appeared inclined to rein in the administration’s expansive reading of emergency powers, though the outcome may hinge on whether the Court applies the major questions doctrine to foreign-affairs authority — and on how Justices Barrett, Gorsuch, and Brett M. Kavanaugh ultimately align.