The Supreme Court has struck down President Donald Trump’s tariffs on imported foreign goods, dealing a blow to the administration’s economic policy.
In a Friday decision led by Chief Justice John Roberts, the justices found that the president did not have the power to issue tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). The ruling could have broad implications for a range of industries, including the energy sector, that have faced economic uncertainty from the global trade war during Trump’s first year back in office.
The decision is a win for small businesses and blue states that challenged the tariffs and is an unusual example of the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority ruling against the Trump administration.
The majority applied the major questions doctrine — which says Congress must clearly authorize executive action on economically and significant matters, and which the court used to invalidate an Obama-era climate rule — to reject Trump’s tariff plan.
Three members of the conservative wing, Justices Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh and Samuel Alito dissented.
IEEPA gives the president the power to respond to an “unusual or extraordinary threat” that comes at least in part from outside of the United States. The statute has not previously been used to impose tariffs.
Trump cited a pair of national emergencies — the flow of illicit drugs across the U.S. border and a lack of reciprocity in bilateral trade — to justify sweeping tariffs against Canada, Mexico, China and other trading partners.
The Justice Department had argued that language in IEEPA about regulation of imports could be interpreted to mean the president could invoke the statute to impose tariffs.
Opponents of the tariffs countered that Congress had not clearly given the president that power.
