What’s at stake: The Supreme Court struck down the White House’s sweeping tariff regime that went into effect last April in a 6-3 ruling.
Expert quote: “The Government cannot identify any statute in which the power to regulate includes the power to tax.” — Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority.
Forward look: The White House will likely seek alternative avenues to enact its tariff agenda, which economists have feared would drive up inflation and restrict trade, which could dampen economic growth and impact corporate borrowers’ ability to repay loans.
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The Supreme Court on Friday struck down the Trump administration’s effort to impose sweeping
The majority opinion, authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, held that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act — a law designed to restrict foreign financial and property transactions during crises — did not allow the President to unilaterally impose tariffs, rejecting the legal underpinnings of the administration’s tariff regime. Roberts was joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
“IEEPA authorizes the President to ‘investigate, block during the pendency of an investigation, regulate, direct and compel, nullify, void, prevent or prohibit . . . importation or exportation,” the court wrote. “Absent from this lengthy list of specific powers is any mention of tariffs or duties.”
The court held that the authority to regulate importation conferred by the IEEPA does not extend so far as to dictate importation taxes, which is the sole purview of Congress.
“The power to ‘regulate . . . importation’ does not fill that void. … Many statutes grant the Executive the power to ‘regulate,'” the opinion held. “Yet the Government cannot identify any statute in which the power to regulate includes the power to tax. 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.”
This is a developing story.
