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Supreme Court strikes down swath of Trump's tariffs
Tariffs are just a consumption tax on consumers. Consumers are paying for any deficit reduction. If Trump was smart he'd be thanking them in secret for getting rid of a horrible policy but he isn't so....
"The Trump administration cited the country’s wide trade deficit in justifying its use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act for many of its global tariffs. While trade was choppy last year as companies maneuvered around the tariff threats and negotiations, the overall goods and services trade deficit for 2025 barely budged, hitting $901.5 billion compared with $903.5 billion in 2024, according to the Commerce Department."
The Budget Lab (TBL) estimates the effects of all US tariffs and foreign retaliation implemented in 2025 after the decision by the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) that President Trump exceeded his authority to invoke the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose reciprocal tariffs.
grift is the only thing that matters to trump : does he have another route to make daily tariff decisions\reversals based on bribes in 1-on-1 nation deals ?
things like a scotus loyalty test, refunds, etc...are considerations for his entertainment value only. just ahead of staying awake during the melania movie.
An important note about today’s impromptu news conference – where Donald Trump assailed the supreme court’s ruling that struck down many of his tariffs. The president used the moment to underscore how deeply he prizes loyalty from the judiciary.
• He blasted the justices who invalidated his use of IEEPA to impose sweeping levies as “fools and lap dogs”, while singling out the three conservative dissenters – Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh – for praise.
• Trump highlighted Kavanaugh’s dissent, which argued that other legal pathways remain for a president to impose tariffs. Trump announced that he plans to pursue some of those options. “I’m so proud of him,” the president said of Kavanaugh, whom he nominated in his first term, while lauding the justice’s “genius and his great ability”.
• Donald Trump didn’t say whether he regretted nominating Neil Gorsuch or Amy Coney Barrett to the supreme court, after they concurred that the president’s use of IEEPA to justify global tariffs is illegal in today’s ruling. “I think the decision was terrible,” Trump said. “I think it’s an embarrassment to their families, if you want to know the truth, the two of them.”
• Donald Trump said today that the six supreme court justices who ruled agains his global tariffs under IEEPA are “barely” invited to next week’s State of the Union address at the US Capitol. “Honestly, I couldn’t care less if they come,” the president said.
Comment: You gotta admit that our "president" sure is a class act.
[Justice Kavanaugh] also noted that the administration had used the leverage of tariffs to enter into key trading deals with other nations. Mr. Trump, he wrote, “helped facilitate trade deals worth trillions of dollars — including with foreign nations from China to the United Kingdom to Japan, and more.”
Is he really suggesting that it's okay to break the law if it leads to a supposedly good outcome? If not, then what's the point of this observation?
Most people support "the ends justify the means" to some extent. Who has not told a "little white lie"? But IMHO this sort of thinking in a legal opinion is beyond the pale.
Not only that, but, what evidence has Kavanaugh offered to show that the U.S. has had "trillions" in economic benefit from tariffs? The economic numbers are not indicating that.
The court’s rejection of President Trump’s tariffs program is the latest in a series of clashes between him and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.
Starting with the 2024 decision that gave President Trump substantial immunity from prosecution and continuing through a score of emergency orders provisionally greenlighting an array of his second-term initiatives, Mr. Trump has had an extraordinarily successful run before the Supreme Court.
That came to a sudden, jolting halt on Friday, when Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for six members of the court, roundly rejected Mr. Trump’s signature tariffs program. It was the Supreme Court’s first merits ruling — a final judgment on the lawfulness of an executive action — on an element of the administration’s second-term agenda. It amounted to a declaration of independence.
It also served as another in a series of clashes between the leaders of two branches of the federal government cut from very different cloth: the controlled, cerebral chief justice and the biting, brazen president.
It could make for an awkward evening Tuesday, when, if history is any guide, Chief Justice Roberts and several of his colleagues will attend Mr. Trump’s State of the Union address, sitting in their robes within eyesight of the president. On Friday, Mr. Trump may have provided a preview of his remarks, saying at a news conference that he was ashamed of some of the justices — presumably the ones who voted against him. “They’re very unpatriotic and disloyal to our Constitution,” he said of those justices.
Last month, in an attempt at humor at the annual Alfalfa Club dinner, Mr. Trump said he would not tell a “vicious joke” about the chief justice, who was present. “I’m going to kiss his ass for a long time,” the president said.
That strategy did not seem to work. In the tariffs decision and elsewhere, the chief justice has pushed back. Last March, just hours after Mr. Trump called for the impeachment of a judge who sought to pause the removal of more than 200 migrants to El Salvador, Chief Justice Roberts issued a rare public statement.
“For more than two centuries,” the chief justice said, “it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.”
In 2018, the chief also defended the independence and integrity of the federal judiciary after Mr. Trump called a judge who had ruled against his administration’s asylum policy “an Obama judge.” Chief Justice Roberts said that was a profound misunderstanding of the judicial role: “We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges,” he said. “What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them. That independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for.”
Mr. Trump, for his part, has been a longtime critic of the chief justice. After the 2012 ruling upholding a key provision of the Affordable Care Act, Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter that “I guess @JusticeRoberts wanted to be a part of Georgetown society more than anyone knew,” citing a fake handle. During his first presidential campaign, Mr. Trump called the chief justice “an absolute disaster.”
In his first administration, Mr. Trump did poorly in the Supreme Court in argued cases in which the United States, an executive department, an independent agency or the president himself was a party. He prevailed only 42 percent of the time, the lowest rate since at least Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration.
In other words, a fundamentally conservative court, with a six-justice majority of Republican appointees that includes three named by Mr. Trump himself, had not been particularly receptive to his arguments. The Biden administration, by contrast, did somewhat better, landing on the winning side 54 percent of the time.
In the tariffs decision, two of Mr. Trump’s appointees — Justices Neil M. Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett — voted with Chief Justice Roberts.
In a year-end report on the state of the federal judiciary, issued weeks before Mr. Trump took office, the chief justice seemed to be bracing himself.
“Attempts to intimidate judges for their rulings in cases are inappropriate and should be vigorously opposed,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote. “Public officials certainly have a right to criticize the work of the judiciary, but they should be mindful that intemperance in their statements when it comes to judges may prompt dangerous reactions by others.”
Comment: Well, the "president" did say that "They’re very unpatriotic and disloyal to our Constitution”, but then for him that's pretty mild, not even approaching "intemperate".
Comments
"The Trump administration cited the country’s wide trade deficit in justifying its use
of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act for many of its global tariffs.
While trade was choppy last year as companies maneuvered around the tariff threats
and negotiations, the overall goods and services trade deficit for 2025 barely budged,
hitting $901.5 billion compared with $903.5 billion in 2024, according to the Commerce Department."
after the decision by the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) that President Trump exceeded
his authority to invoke the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA)
to impose reciprocal tariffs.
https://budgetlab.yale.edu/research/state-us-tariffs-february-20-2026
grift is the only thing that matters to trump :
does he have another route to make daily tariff decisions\reversals based on bribes in 1-on-1 nation deals ?
things like a scotus loyalty test, refunds, etc...are considerations for his entertainment value only. just ahead of staying awake during the melania movie.
An important note about today’s impromptu news conference – where Donald Trump assailed the supreme court’s ruling that struck down many of his tariffs. The president used the moment to underscore how deeply he prizes loyalty from the judiciary.
• He blasted the justices who invalidated his use of IEEPA to impose sweeping levies as “fools and lap dogs”, while singling out the three conservative dissenters – Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh – for praise.
• Trump highlighted Kavanaugh’s dissent, which argued that other legal pathways remain for a president to impose tariffs. Trump announced that he plans to pursue some of those options. “I’m so proud of him,” the president said of Kavanaugh, whom he nominated in his first term, while lauding the justice’s “genius and his great ability”.
• Donald Trump didn’t say whether he regretted nominating Neil Gorsuch or Amy Coney Barrett to the supreme court, after they concurred that the president’s use of IEEPA to justify global tariffs is illegal in today’s ruling. “I think the decision was terrible,” Trump said. “I think it’s an embarrassment to their families, if you want to know the truth, the two of them.”
• Donald Trump said today that the six supreme court justices who ruled agains his global tariffs under IEEPA are “barely” invited to next week’s State of the Union address at the US Capitol. “Honestly, I couldn’t care less if they come,” the president said.
Comment: You gotta admit that our "president" sure is a class act.
Following are excerpts from a current report in The New York Times:
The court’s rejection of President Trump’s tariffs program is the latest in a series of clashes between him and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.
Comment: Well, the "president" did say that "They’re very unpatriotic and disloyal to our Constitution”, but then for him that's pretty mild, not even approaching "intemperate".
BTW, the president was advised that tariffs invoked via the IEEPA
might be struck down by the courts but he ignored counsel.