What to know about the Supreme Court’s arguments on Trump’s tariffs

WASHINGTON (AP) — Three lower courts have ruled that President Donald Trump’s use of emergency powers to impose global tariffs is unlawful. Now the Supreme Court, whose three justices were appointed by Trump and generally favor strong presidential authority, will have the final say.

Listen live: The Supreme Court will hear the case on Trump’s tariffs in a key test of presidential power

In nearly two dozen emergency appeals, the justices largely agreed with Trump in temporarily allowing parts of his aggressive second-term agenda to take effect while the lawsuits continue.

But the case being heard on Wednesday is the first in which the court will issue a final decision on Trump’s policy. The risks are enormous, both politically and financially.

The Republican president has made tariffs a key part of his economic and foreign policy, and said it would be a “disaster” if the Supreme Court ruled against him.

Here are some things to know about tariff arguments in the Supreme Court:

Tariffs are taxes on imports

It is paid by companies that import finished products or parts, and the additional cost can be passed on to consumers.

As of September, the government announced the collection of $195 billion in revenues generated by tariffs.

The Constitution gives Congress the power to impose tariffs, but Trump has claimed extraordinary authority to act without congressional approval by declaring national emergencies under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977.

In February, he invoked a law imposing tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China, saying the illegal flow of immigrants and drugs across the US border amounted to a national emergency and that the three countries needed to do more to stop it.

In April, he imposed global tariffs after declaring that the United States’ long-running trade deficit constituted a “national emergency.”

Liberal-backed companies and states have challenged the tariffs in federal court

Challengers of Trump’s actions obtained rulings from a specialized trade court, a district judge in Washington, and a business-focused appeals court, also in the nation’s capital.

He watches: Trump’s tariffs face a test before the Supreme Court as companies challenge his authority to impose them

Those courts found that Trump could not justify the tariffs under the Emergency Powers Act, which does not mention them. But they left the definitions in place for the meantime.

The appeals court relied on key questions, a legal principle created by the Supreme Court that requires Congress to speak clearly about issues of “broad economic and political importance.”

The Big Questions principle has governed many of Biden’s policies

The conservative majority killed three of then-President Joe Biden’s initiatives related to the coronavirus pandemic. The court ended Democrats’ pause on evictions, blocked vaccine authorization for large businesses and blocked student loan forgiveness that could have totaled $500 billion over 10 years.

In comparison, the stakes in the tariff issue are much higher. The taxes are expected to generate $3 trillion over 10 years.

The challengers in the tariff case cited the writings of the three Trump-appointed justices – Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh – in calling on the court to apply similar restrictions to Trump’s apparent policy.

Barrett described a babysitter who would take the kids on roller coasters and spend a night in a hotel at the encouragement of a parent “to make sure the kids were having fun.”

“In the normal course, permission to spend money on pleasure allows the babysitter to take the children to the local ice cream parlor or movie theater, not on a multi-day trip to an out-of-town park,” Barrett wrote in the student loan case. “If a parent was willing to give the green light to a trip of this size, we would expect greater clarity from the general instructions to ‘make sure the kids have fun’.”

However, Kavanaugh suggested that the court should not apply the same restrictive standard to foreign policy and national security issues.

A dissenting appellate judge also wrote that Congress intentionally gave presidents more latitude to act through the Emergency Powers Act.

Some of the companies suing are also raising a separate legal argument in an appeal to conservative justices, saying Congress cannot constitutionally delegate its taxing power to the president.

The nondelegation doctrine has not been used in 90 years, since the Supreme Court struck down some New Deal legislation.

But Gorsuch authored a dissent in June that would have viewed the FCC’s universal service fee as an unconstitutional mandate. Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas joined the dissent.

“What happens when Congress, tired of the hard work of legislating and facing strong incentives to pass the buck, cedes its legislative authority, clearly and unambiguously, to the executive authority it craves?” Gorsuch wrote.

Judges can act more quickly than usual in issuing a decision

The court did not agree to consider the case until September, and set a date for arguments less than two months later. The quick turnaround, at least by the Supreme Court’s standards, suggests the court will try to act quickly.

High-profile cases can take half a year or more to resolve, often because majority and dissenting opinions go through rounds of review.
But the court can act quickly when deadline pressures dictate. Most recently, the court ruled a week after hearing arguments in the TikTok case, unanimously upholding a law banning the popular social media app unless it is sold by its Chinese parent company.

Trump intervened several times to prevent the law from taking effect while negotiations with China continued.