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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowThe Supreme Court granted an unusually quick hearing on President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs on Tuesday, putting a policy at the center of his economic agenda squarely before the nation’s highest court.
The justices will hear the case in November, a lightning-fast timetable by the Supreme Court’s typical standards, and rule at some point after that. The tariffs will stay in place in the meantime.
The court agreed to take up an appeal from the Trump administration after lower courts found most of his tariffs illegal.
The small businesses and states that challenged them also agreed to the accelerated timetable. They say Trump’s import taxes on goods from almost every country in the world have nearly driven their businesses to bankruptcy. “Congress, not the President alone, has the power to impose tariffs,” attorney Jeffrey Schwab with the Liberty Justice Center said.
Two lower courts have agreed that Trump didn’t have the power to impose all the tariffs under an emergency powers law, though a divided appeals court left them in place.
The Trump administration asked the justices to intervene quickly, arguing the law gives him the power to regulate imports and striking down the tariffs would put the country on “the brink of economic catastrophe.”
The case will come before a court that has been reluctant to check Trump’s extraordinary flex of executive power. One big question is whether the justices’ own expansive view of presidential authority allows for Trump’s tariffs without the explicit approval of Congress, which the Constitution endows with the power to levy tariffs. Three of the justices on the conservative-majority court were nominated by Trump in his first term.
While the tariffs and their erratic rollout have raised fears of higher prices and slower economic growth, Trump has also used them to pressure other countries into accepting new trade deals. Revenue from tariffs totaled $159 billion by late August, more than double what it was at the same point a year earlier.
Solicitor General D. John Sauer has argued that the lower court rulings are already affecting those trade negotiations. If the tariffs are struck down, the U.S. Treasury might take a hit by having to refund some of the import taxes it has collected, Trump administration officials have said. A ruling against them could even threaten the nation’s ability to reduce the flow of fentanyl and efforts to end Russia’s war against Ukraine, Sauer argued.
The administration did win over four appeals court judges who found the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, lets the president regulate importation during emergencies without explicit limitations. In recent decades, Congress has ceded some tariff authority to the president, and Trump has made the most of the power vacuum.
The case involves two sets of import taxes, both of which Trump justified by declaring a national emergency: the tariffs first announced in April and the ones from February on imports from Canada, China and Mexico.
It doesn’t include his levies on foreign steel, aluminum and autos, or the tariffs Trump imposed on China in his first term that were kept by Democratic President Joe Biden.
Trump can impose tariffs under other laws, but those have more limitations on the speed and severity with which he could act.
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This is a good thing.
If SCOTUS follows precedent, they will lock arms and will say ok to Trump with no explanation whatsoever.
The U.S. Constitution primarily grants Congress the power to levy tariffs in Article I, Section 8, which allows Congress to “lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises” and to “regulate Commerce with foreign Nations”. While tariffs are a constitutional power of the legislative branch, Congress has delegated some of this authority to the President through various statutes, such as the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. Additionally, Article I, Section 9 prohibits the government from taxing exports, known as the Export Clause.
Article I, Section 8:
This section is the primary source of constitutional authority for tariffs. It gives Congress the power to collect taxes, duties (tariffs), and regulate foreign commerce.
Uniformity:
This same section requires that these duties and excises be uniform throughout the United States.
Presidential Authority Delegated by Congress:
Although Congress holds the constitutional power, it has passed laws giving the president authority to impose tariffs in certain circumstances. This includes the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 (Section 232) which allows the president to impose tariffs to address national security threats from imports, and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA), another statute used to provide the president with tariff authority.
okay, so what’s the national security threat from imports? The African denim manufacturers aren’t putting any US workers out of business. The little things coming in under the old tariff-free didn’t threaten US employees or employers (I don’t care how hard they try, folks in Arkansas cannot make Aran Irish Wool sweaters…you have to be in Aran to make an Aran sweater).
Where is the threat? Where is the National Security issue?