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Trump's global tariffs struck down by US Supreme Court
- anovikov 7mo agoWait wait wasn't it wholly on Trump's payroll as the dems say?
- franktankbank 7mo agoCan't say one way or another whether the power of the president was abused in this case but its a sad state for businesses who can't get started because of flip flopping policy. I'm for the tarrifs, its absolutely ridiculous to think only Wall Street matters.
- interestpiqued 7mo agoThe tariffs have been flip flopping all year due to the admin. That’s why it’s not smart for it to be up to executive discretion
- mastax 7mo agoThe tariffs have been absolute hell on small businesses and manufacturing businesses of any size.
- fullshark 7mo agoJust because businesses / wall street doesn't like something doesn't mean it's necessarily good for every day Americans. The tariff vision of on-shoring manufacturing and reliving the glory days of the post WW2 era was rooted in fantasy. The US simply cannot compete given its labor costs and actual manufacturing know-how. Perhaps this is an overdue wakeup call, and a freak out is in order regarding this reality but unconstitutional tariffs alone were never going to solve this problem.
- expedition32 7mo agoI was watching the Olympics. They have these really cool drones that follow the skiers down the slope at 80 kph. Chinese drones... If only you knew how bad things really are.
- boothby 7mo agohttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/feb/18/china-dancing-humanoid-robots-festival-show https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/feb/18/china-dancing-...
- mastax 7mo agoIf the US really wanted to make a durable shift to manufacturing, presidential tariffs by fiat aren’t a good strategy anyway. Tariffs could be a small part of that strategy but they should be targeted, not broad, and enacted by congress so businesses have the kind of decades-long stability required to invest in factories that take years to pay off.
- illithid0 7mo agoThe power to impose tariffs is given to Congress in the Constitution. Exceptions are allowed but in rare and specific situations. The fact that SCOTUS struck it down means the tariffs as imposed were unconstitutional. You can be for tariffs all you want, I'm not here to argue their efficacy. But you absolutely cannot with any intellectual honesty still be on the fence about whether he abused his power given this ruling. It is not "flip flopping policy" to break the bounds of your Constitutional power and be shut down by one of the branches meant to check you.
- franktankbank 7mo agoIt is flip flopping policy as far as it was here one day and struck down the next. That's what matters to people attempting to start something here. I should have stated I was not interested in arguing the actual rule process, you have 6-3 vote from the Supreme Court in your favor.
- alex43578 7mo agoIt was absurd to think this was valid policy in the first place. The IEEPA clearly didn’t delegate unilateral tariff authority to the president, especially on the flimsy basis of a “trade emergency”. If Trump wanted a durable trade policy, work with the legislative majority to pass a real policy with deliberation - just like they should have done with immigration.
- pavlov 7mo agoAlmost all legal experts said from the start the Trump’s approach to tariffs was unconstitutional. So who else could be to blame for the flip-flopping? The executive is supposed to uphold laws made by Congress, not throw spaghetti at the Supreme Court’s wall and see if it sticks.
- jopsen 7mo agoI don't think the administration cares about the appearance of impropriety.
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- blackguardx 7mo agoIt is almost like the flip-flopping policy was never meant to boost US manufacturing, but to secure kickbacks and deals from big companies and countries to get favored treatment.
- pavlov 7mo agoIf you don’t think the president did anything wrong, then whose fault is it that those businesses are suffering from flip-flopping policy?
- elAhmo 7mo agoCould you elaborate on this: > I'm for the tarrifs What makes you think they are good?
- energy123 7mo agoThis is the first semblance of policy certainty. The ruling is a good thing for everyone, Republicans and Trump included, even if they're not intelligent enough to understand why.
- alephnerd 7mo agoSemi-related - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47088609 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47088609
- sschueller 7mo agoThe global damage has been done. It took too long and it looks like it will only be partially reversed. Constitutional changes are required for other countries to trust in the stability of the US in the future.
- seydor 7mo agoI disagree. Despite all the talk and grand announcements of independence, most of the world wants globalization and worked for more of it, but maybe without the US (openings to china/india/LatAm). Now it will most likely be WITH the US. While the US may feel that globalization has been bad for itself (it hasn't - just look at the spectacular US economy) , the rest of the developed world is not in a position to reverse it (due to demographics mostly) and will be happy to jump back in.
- jezzamon 7mo agoPresumably congress could recreate the same tariffs, if they wanted.
- contagiousflow 7mo agoI'm guessing you're American?
- harimau777 7mo agoI think that a lot of people would disagree that the economy is spectacular. People can't even afford to buy a home in a decent part of the country.
- SV_BubbleTime 7mo ago>People can't even afford to buy a home in a decent part of the country. Is that because of scarcity? We’re manipulation? Or something else?
- zanderwohl 7mo agoThe economy is not spectacular by any means. It's about average on paper, and without AI growth (which will surely slow down like the .com crash) and increased healthcare spending, it's been mildly slumping.
- raincole 7mo agoIt feels like the US-Iran war is inevitable now.
- alephnerd 7mo agoA US-Iran conflict has been inevitable for decades. A nuclear Iran would lead to a nuclear KSA, Turkiye, UAE, Egypt, Qatar, etc and would make the Middle East more unstable. We don't need to put boots on the ground though. The reason why we had boots in Afghanistan and Iraq which led to it's unpopularity was due to our moral commitment to nation-building in the 1990s-2000s (especially after Yugoslavia). Americans no longer feel that moral compulsion. If Iran shatters like Libya, the problem is solved and KSA, UAE, Qatar, Turkiye, Azerbaijan, Pakistan, Russia, China, and India can fight over the carcass just like how ASEAN, China, Russia, and India are doing in now collapsed Myanmar (which had similar ambitions in the 2000s); how the Gulf, Med states, and Russia are meddling in Libya; and how the Gulf, Turkiye, Russia, China, and India are meddling in the Horn of Africa (Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia). This is why North Korea prioritized nuclear weapons - in order to gain strategic autonomy from the US and China [0], especially because China has constantly offered to forcibly denuclearize North Korea as a token to SK and Japan for a China-SK-Japan FTA [1] Edit: can't reply > How many more years will it remain inevitable, do you think? As long as Iranian leadership remain committed to building a nuclear program. Thus Iran either completely hands off it's nuclear program to the US or the EU, or it shatters. The former is not happening because the key veto players in Iran (the clerics, the Bonyads, the IRGC, the Army, and regime-aligned oligarchs) are profiting from sanctions and substituting US/EU relations with Russia and China, and have an incentive to have a nuclear weapon in order to solidify their perpetual control in the same manner that North Korea did. That only leaves the latter. The same thing happened to Libya and Myanmar. The only reason the Obama administration went with the JCPOA was because the EU, Russia, and China lobbied the Obama admin that they could prevent Iran from nuclearizing. China+Russia are now indifferent to Iranian nuclear ambitions due to ONG (China) and technology (Russia) dependencies, and the EU does not have the power projection capacity nor the economic linkages to stop Iran. [0] - https://www.cfr.org/backgrounders/six-party-talks-north-koreas-nuclear-program https://www.cfr.org/backgrounders/six-party-talks-north-kore... [1] - https://english.kyodonews.net/articles/-/47844?device=smartphone&phrase=okinawa&words= https://english.kyodonews.net/articles/-/47844?device=smartp...
- drunner 7mo agoIs it all speculation still at this point for what happens next? Like are they immediately void, does the govt have to repay importers the now illegal loss? Or is this just another "trump did illegal thing but nothing will happen" kind of scenario?
- raincole 7mo agoTrump govt will find another way to circumvent this and keep the tariff. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/02/cnbc-daily-open-trump-administration-has-backup-plans-for-tariffs.html https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/02/cnbc-daily-open-trump-admini...
- 1970-01-01 7mo agoYou can't get around the Supreme Court. Full stop. They can try, fail, and declare victory but they cannot find another way. They would literally be right back in the courts fighting their own consequences and punishment.
- efreak 7mo agoAfaik there's no consequences for the president ignoring the supreme court. Presidents have done so before. They mostly seem to get their way in the end.
- petcat 7mo agoAny further action to end-around the Supreme Court decision and re-impose the tariffs will almost certainly require broad Congressional approval. And this is a very bad time to try to do that since nearly half of those seats are up for re-election this year. I think this issue is effectively dead at least until we see how the new majority shakes out in November.
- lokar 7mo agoI have not read the ruling, but…. A typical pattern is the appeals court (of which scotus is one) clarifies the legal issues and send the case back to the trial court to clean up and issue specific orders.
- nerdsniper 7mo agoUnfortunately, I suspect that many platforms/outlets which were paying tariffs for us will continue their high prices. I’d love to see my startups cost of hardware go down but I can’t plan on it happening in my CapEx projections.
- edot 7mo agoYep. Same exact trick that happened during COVID. Prices ratchet up but never down.
- ajross 7mo agoPrices drop all the time. But no, they don't drop "automatically" as some kind of rules thing when regulations change. Prices drop when someone has extra inventory and needs to liquidate, or run a sale, or whatever. Anthropomorphizing markets as evil cartels is 100% just as bad as the efficient market fetishization you see in libertarian circles. Markets are what markets do, and what they do is compete trying to sell you junk.
- mothballed 7mo agoMouser (electronics parts distributor) just charges you an itemized tariff rate. They should go down immediately for those electronics parts.
- techdmn 7mo agoTo me this suggests that the problem is not cost, but lack of competition, either in production or in pricing. My understanding is that there are sufficient laws to ensure competition, but they are not widely enforced.
- coldpie 7mo ago> My understanding is that there are sufficient laws to ensure competition, but they are not widely enforced. That's correct, the laws exist but it's up to the executive to enforce them. The US has not meaningfully enforced any anti-trust laws since the Microsoft web browser bundling case in the 90s. There was a brief glimmer of anti-trust being resuscitated by FTC during the Biden admin, but the tech company monopolies got so spooked by that that they brought all their resources to bear in 2024 to ensure their guy won, and he did. Anti-trust remains dead in the US for at least another generation.
- Jamesbeam 7mo agoHe better dusts off the good old auto pen. The man has a lot of cheques to write for the 175 billion he stole illegally from foreign countries.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- edot 7mo agoWhat? You mean from American importers and therefore consumers? Foreign countries do not pay tariffs. This lie needs to stop.
- carefree-bob 7mo agoYou really believe that the incidence of taxation falls 100% on the buyer and never the seller? And you think those who have a more accurate view are "lying"? Please learn a bit about the incidence of taxation: https://stantcheva.scholars.harvard.edu/sites/g/files/omnuum7746/files/stantcheva/files/lecture3_1.pdf https://stantcheva.scholars.harvard.edu/sites/g/files/omnuum... The main models supporting your view is where consumer income is exogenous and all firm profits are redistributed to the representative consumer as a lump sum transfer: https://www.ief.es/docs/destacados/publicaciones/revistas/hpe/216_Art2.pdf https://www.ief.es/docs/destacados/publicaciones/revistas/hp... Please avoid simplistic beliefs and moral outrage for things as complex as trade policy. The people who say that the incidence of taxation falls heavily on sellers may just be better informed, particularly when listening to wall street earnings calls while simultaneously looking at the consumer price data. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CPIAUCSL https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CPIAUCSL
- rsynnott 7mo agoIndeed; it's not 100%. It's actually 96%: https://www.kielinstitut.de/publications/news/americas-own-goal-americans-pay-almost-entirely-for-trumps-tariffs/ https://www.kielinstitut.de/publications/news/americas-own-g...
- dayyan 7mo agoThis ruling impacts tariffs imposed by way of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which includes the reciprocal tariffs announced on April 2’s so-called “Liberation Day.” Bloomberg Intelligence estimates that roughly $170 billion in tariff revenues have been generated through February 20 via these policies. However, this ruling has no bearing on section 232 tariffs, which have been used to justify levies on the likes of steel and aluminum. Trump administration officials had indicated that they developed contingency plans to attempt to reinstate levies in the event of this outcome. CNN reported that Trump called this ruling a “disgrace” and said he had a backup plan for tariffs.
- megaman821 7mo agoIt looks like there are several ways to reinstate these tarrifs at the Executive level https://www.cato.org/blog/supreme-court-got-it-right-ieepa-dont-pop-champagne-yet https://www.cato.org/blog/supreme-court-got-it-right-ieepa-d...
- HaloZero 7mo agoThe important thing is that Trump can't do the tariffs beyond 15% on a whim anymore though. Like imposing tariffs on Canada because of an ad displayed in Toronto.
- agentifysh 7mo agowill it bring back the de minimis exemption for Canadian exporters? Have a friend who's ebay business has been destroyed.
- ajross 7mo agoThat's just bluster. The IEEPA nonsense was already the creative trickery deployed in defense of a novel and prima facia unconstitutional policy. If they had a better argument, they would have made it. And we know in practice that Trump TACOs out rather than pick real fights with established powers. Markets don't like it when regulatory agencies go rogue vs. the rule of law. They'll just shift gears to something else.
- uuuuuuurrrrr 7mo agoAll of that pain for nothing. The Trump administration's signature policy achievements involve the DJT ticker and actual meme coins. I hope no republican sits in the oval office for 50 years, they're all responsible for enabling this madness and self-destruction.
- pawelduda 7mo agoMemecoins especially are so funny it's worth putting out some numbers: - $TRUMP meme coin, down 87% from ATH - $MELANIA meme coin, down 98% from ATH - $WLFI, down 50% from ATH, with 4 Trump co-founders The first two coins were actually hyped up so hard at launch that they drained liquidity from most of the crypto market because of people dumping everything to buy in
- sjsdaiuasgdia 7mo agoNone of these were intended to be long term investments for anyone. They exist as a way for money to be given to the Trump family in an legally obfuscated way. Most of that happens/happened right after launch.
- pawelduda 7mo agoNot disagreeing that wasn't the case, but none of these were advertised as such, they were all listed by top exchanges as any other speculative crypto asset
- sjsdaiuasgdia 7mo agoWell yes you don't usually put up a giant sign that says "Buy Influence Here!" for your influence buying scheme.
- macintux 7mo ago> Trump said without tariffs, "everybody would be bankrupt". Always useful to have a grasp on reality.
- fuoqi 7mo agoLet the fun of returning hundreds of billions of the illegal tariff revenue back to importers through litigation begin!
- rapnie 7mo agoTrillions even, according to some sources.
- krapp 7mo agoDon't worry, DOGE saved us so much money it won't even matter /s.
- ycsux 7mo agoThe national debt went up by $2.5T since Feb 2025, keep up the DOGE work
- zeroonetwothree 7mo agoBut without DOGE it would have gone up $2.51T
- sowbug 7mo agoWill I get back the $17 DHL charged to collect the $1 tariff on the cat toys I bought from China? Actual event may not have occurred, but DHL flat fee is real.
- fuoqi 7mo agoSure, if you are ready to sue the US government for that. /s I dunno if a class-action lawsuit is realistic or not in this case or how likely a court decision stating that all tariff revenue must be refunded.
- SV_BubbleTime 7mo agoWere cat toys not made in the US? Especially if you were to factor and $18 delta? Sorry, but tariffs on aluminum or steel that is only made in China or microchips or components. I think that’s a valid discussion to have. … you’re complaining about disposable cat toys that were likely made in a sweat shop where the workers were not making a livable wage and then putting in a container on a ship burning crude oil and pushed around the world so you can have some junk that was a couple dollars cheaper than a domestic option? Not the same thing.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- cjbenedikt 7mo agoNow let's see what will happen.After all J.D.Vance (US VP)famously said:" The judiciary has decided. Now let them enforce it".
- CWuestefeld 7mo agoAhem. The line is widely attributed to President Andrew Jackson, usually quoted as: “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it.” He probably didn't say it either, its first appearance is in an 1860s book by Horace Greeley.
- tracker1 7mo agoFrom the guy that invaded Florida... I wouldn't be surprised if it was Andrew Jackson though.
- cjbenedikt 7mo agoYou are probably right. Only noticed the comment as he made it recently. Still not exactly reassuring. Mirrors his mindset.
- cjbenedikt 7mo agoWhy the downvote? After all I don't seem to be wrong: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn8z48xwqn3o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn8z48xwqn3o
- edot 7mo agoHoward Lutnick and his sons are surely happy about this. It’s almost like Howard Lutnick, the Secretary of Commerce, knew this would happen. His sons, at their firm Cantor Fitzgerald, have been offering a tariff refund product wherein they pay companies who are struggling with paying tariffs 20-30% of a potential refund, and if (as they did today) they get struck down, they pocket the 100% refund. https://www.finance.senate.gov/ranking-members-news/wyden-warren-probe-lutnick-firms-potential-conflicts-of-interest-related-to-massive-tariff-bets https://www.finance.senate.gov/ranking-members-news/wyden-wa...
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- SilverElfin 7mo agoThat’s an insane conflict of interest. His sons took over the firm? It was already bad that Lutnick took over in the first place. As I recall he sued the widow of Cantor to steal control of the company after Cantor died. But I guess this is not very surprising. I am sure every friend and family member of Trump administration people made trades leading all those tariff announcements over the last year, while the rest of us got rocked by the chaos in the stock market.
- tills13 7mo agoThis admin? Conflict of interest? Add it to the list.
- edot 7mo agoLutnick is not a good man. There’s also this, from https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA01249207.pdf https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA012492... “LUTNICK was a neighbor of JEFFREY EPSTEIN (EPSTEIN) in the adjoining property at 11 E 71st Street, New York, New York. LUTNICK bought the property for $10 through a trust. LES WEXNER (WEXNER) and EPSTEIN owned the building. LUTNICK bought it in a very roundabout way from EPSTEIN.”
- mywittyname 7mo ago> That’s an insane conflict of interest. Welcome to America. This isn't even in the top 10 of corrupt activities our government officials undertaken in the past year.
- JumpinJack_Cash 7mo agoFirst victory in more than a year for 'Team Checks and Balances' Now let's wait for the retaliation of 'Team Orange Dictatorship'
- xnx 7mo agoAm I understanding this right? 1) US customer pays huge import tax on imported goods in the form of higher prices. 2) Seller sends the collected tax to the US government 3) US government will refund all/most of that tax back to the seller after this ruling 4) Seller gets to keep the returned tax money as pure profit (no refund to customer)
- not_a_bot_4sho 7mo agoThere have been no decisions about refunds. The court avoided addressing that. That topic will surely go back to the courts, kicking and screaming
- conductr 7mo agoPersonally think it should not get refunded. There’s no sane way to get it back to its source. And no one group should be making profit from it. Best if it stays with the government like a federal forfeiture so in theory we all benefit from it as citizens , maybe it goes against the national debt or lessens our deficit next year.
- czl 7mo agoNot a bad idea, but how do we prevent this from creating incentives to engineer similar situations in the future?
- nathan_compton 7mo agoPresumably such future attempts would be stopped immediately given this ruling.
- ngc248 7mo agoGovernment is a poor spender, we should not be handing them more money
- conductr 7mo ago
- nine_zeros 7mo ago[dead]
- mullingitover 7mo agoIt’s disappointing but not surprising that the SC left the administration to illegally bilk US taxpayers for billions upon billions of dollars for something that was facially unconstitutional. They should’ve allowed an emergency injunction from the outset.
- coldpie 7mo ago> They should’ve allowed an emergency injunction from the outset. That wouldn't have given the opportunity for SCOTUS's financial backers to build up their profits first https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47089443 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47089443
- k1ko 7mo agoYou think corporations and the elite .01% support tariffs? It obviously was very unpopular with that class of society. The policy was aimed to help the working class of the country. You can argue that it was a piss poor way of doing so, but it's certainly not something that the elite class advocated for and getting rich off of.,
- triceratops 7mo ago> The policy was aimed to help the working class of the country If you really think this, you're a rube.
- elAhmo 7mo agoGiven the current members of SC, as you said, disappointing but not surprising. Who knew that confirming Kavanaugh and people with similar moral compass would have such grave consequences.
- Ajedi32 7mo agoThey didn't rule it unconstitutional - it's not. They ruled that the specific statute Trump was using that allows him to "regulate imports" doesn't include regulating imports with tariffs.
- duxup 7mo agoI don’t get what SCOTUS is up to as far as a practical matter goes. They’re hands off so the president can clearly gather illegal taxes. Then they change their mind. So what? The government gives the taxes back? Is that even possible? Next step what? Trump does something else illegal and SCOTUS majority sits on their hands for a year or more? SCOTUS majority’s deference to their guy has become absurd… the judicial branch is of no use…
- leopoldj 7mo agoI am not a lawyer. But I think cases need to work their way up to SC. Before today's ruling a Federal Trade Court ruled the tariffs illegal [1]. And later, a Federal Appeals Court did the same [2] The process takes time. 1. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/29/court-strikes-down-trump-reciprocal-tariffs.html https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/29/court-strikes-down-trump-rec... 2. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/29/trump-trade-tariffs-appeals-court-ieepa.html https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/29/trump-trade-tariffs-appeals-...
- duxup 7mo agoI know how that works but the speed and process should reflect the severity of the issue. Illegally taxing billions from we the people? Should be addressed immediately. And they have done that before….
- estimator7292 7mo agoThe government gives back overpaid taxes every year, and there are long-established mechanisms to deduct qualifying purchases from your tax burden. If we lived in a functional society, one might expect that tarriffs could be refunded through the normal income tax refund process hinged upon supplying recipts of tarriffs paid. I do not expect this to happen in the USA.
- bgentry 7mo agoThe actual decision: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-1287_4gcj.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-1287_4gcj.pdf
- Animats 7mo agoRight. Most of the news articles don't link to the decision, which is worth reading. It's a 6-3 decision. Not close. Here's the actual decision: The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in case No. 25–250 is affirmed. The judgment of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in case No. 24–1287 is vacated, and the case is remanded with instructions to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction. So what does that mean in terms of action? It means this decision [1] is now live. The vacated decision was a stay, and that's now dead. So the live decision is now: We affirm the CIT’s holding that the Trafficking and Reciprocal Tariffs imposed by the Challenged Executive Orders exceed the authority delegated to the President by IEEPA’s text. We also affirm the CIT’s grant of declaratory relief that the orders are “invalid as contrary to law.” "CIT" is the Court of International Trade. Their judgement [2], which was unanimous, is now live. It reads: "The court holds for the foregoing reasons that IEEPA does not authorize any of the Worldwide, Retaliatory, or Trafficking Tariff Orders. The Worldwide and Retaliatory Tariff Orders exceed any authority granted to the President by IEEPA to regulate importation by means of tariffs. The Trafficking Tariffs fail because they do not deal with the threats set forth in those orders. This conclusion entitles Plaintiffs to judgment as a matter of law; as the court further finds no genuine dispute as to any material fact, summary judgment will enter against the United States. See USCIT R. 56. The challenged Tariff Orders will be vacated and their operation permanently enjoined." So that last line is the current state: "The challenged Tariff Orders will be vacated and their operation permanently enjoined." Immediately, it appears. A useful question for companies owed a refund is whether they can use their credit against the United States for other debts to the United States, including taxes. [1] https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-orders/25-1812.OPINION.8-29-2025_2566151.pdf https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-orders/25-1812.OPINIO... [2] https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cit.17080/gov.uscourts.cit.17080.55.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cit.170...
- deleted 7mo ago
- apawloski 7mo agoGreat news for people who had to bend over backwards pretending this disruptive, nakedly corrupt behavior was "good, actually." But unfortunately, there are other channels for them to effectively do the same thing, as discussed in oral arguments. So still not a major win for American manufacturers or consumers, I fear.
- dylan604 7mo agoSure, but now SCOTUS can say they are not a rubber stamp for POTUS. "See, we just ruled against him. Sure, it's a case that doesn't really solve anything and only causes more chaos, but we disagreed with him. This one time."
- parineum 7mo ago> ...but we disagreed with him. This one time. They've actually done so numerous times already and have several cases on the docket that look to be leaning against him as well. There's a reason why most serious pundits saw this ruling coming a mile away, because SCOTUS has proven to not be a puppet of the administration.
- axus 7mo agoExcept for the 3 that dissented
- whateveracct 7mo agoKavanaugh's dissent it honestly deranged
- jorblumesea 7mo agoExcept for all the other blatantly unconstitutional rulings in his favor. Presidential immunity one will go down in history as a black stain on America and the courts. and still this current ruling was a 6-3 vote.
- 7mo ago
- cjbenedikt 7mo agoWill the collected tariffs now have to be repaid? If so how. According to the Fed 90% were paid for by the consumers. https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2026/02/who-is-paying-for-the-2025-u-s-tariffs/ https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2026/02/who-is...
- tracker1 7mo agoLikely the middlemen will pocket the difference depending on how the contracts between the shippers/distributers worked... "the people" who paid more at the market(s) for products won't be reimbursed.
- sreekanth850 7mo agowhat happens to those billions of dollars already collected?
- coldcode 7mo agoThe importers would get the refunds, and any of their customers they charged more for would simply keep the refund. If you paid it directly (like international product order) you probably won't ever get repaid, as they probably deleted the transaction or otherwise failed to record it. Refunds even for importers might be caught up in lawsuits which might never resolve. It's a mess, and SCOTUS did not address the mess.
- sreekanth850 7mo agothis is a classic example of fuck around and find out.
- bubblewand 7mo agoTrump addressed the press a little while ago on this topic and claims he's not issuing any refunds until courts force him to. He chastised the Supreme Court for not telling him what to do about refunds, and essentially pleaded helplessness to do anything about it until he fights more lawsuits and rulings demanding specific action are issued, musing something to the effect of "I guess that will take another couple years". He further claimed that this ruling puts his tariffs on a more certain basis(?!) because now he'll use different statutes that have been solidly litigated already (... so why weren't you opting to use those in the first place, if it's truly better? You didn't need to wait on this ruling to do that!) and that the only effect this ruling will have is a brief drop to ~10% across-the-board tariffs while they do the paperwork to bump them back up again under these other statutes. He repeatedly characterized this is good news for his tariffs, while also complaining extensively about the court and insulting the justices in the majority.
- jonkoops 7mo agoI wonder what this means for the EU. We made a new deal under pressure of the tariffs that is actually worse than the deal we had. If we had not bent the knee, we would have had that original deal back, or at least, so it seems? Now we seem to be properly shafted due to weak politicians.
- saubeidl 7mo agoWe never actually ratified that deal. Parliament froze it when Trump started threatening Greenland.
- eigenspace 7mo agoThe deal more or less had 3 'bad' things in it: 1. The EU would face higher tariffs on their exports to the USA. Now mostly struck down 2. The EU would not retaliate with tariffs of its own. Not really a big deal since the only US export to the EU that's worth worrying about are digital services, and those aren't subject to tariffs anyways. 3. The EU promised to buy lots of LNG and make investments in the USA to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. This was a bald-faced lie on the part of the EU negotiators. Even if the EU wanted to actually do this, they have no power or mechanism to make member states and companies within those member states buy more LNG or make more investments in the USA. This was just an empty promise. ___ So if the tariffs are struck down, we're more or less back to where we started.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- elAhmo 7mo agoI am still baffled by the notion that Trump and co. managed to spread the 'other countries are paying for the tariffs' narrative into mainstream and having so many world leaders bend over just to have them not imposed. Knowing they are short-lived, unpredictable, illegal, and in the end hurting the US consumers primarily. Sure, if there is a huge tariff on something, the user might look for an alternative, causing lower sales and, therefore, damaging the source company and economy, but for many products there isn't really a US-available substitute.
- estimator7292 7mo agoThe reality is that even though foreign sellers aren't paying the tarriffs directly, they do experience a direct decrease in demand because one of the largest markets on the planet has made your goods artificially more expensive. Even if you're still making the same money per unit, tarriffs mean you sell fewer units. So many less that it's an existential threat to many businesses.
- carlosjobim 7mo agoI'm just here to enjoy the endlessly fractal spiraling double-think of tariffs being the devil when the US implements them, and being double-plus-good when the European Union implements them (or China or South America). As hackers here are very intelligent but also very unwise, they find great enjoyment in double-think exercises and the resentment it gives them.
- jjtwixman 7mo agoTariffs are bad, there's no double think.
- carlosjobim 7mo agoThen where are the hackers in this comment section calling out for the European Council to strike down European tariffs like the US supreme court did? Where were they before Trump?
- kshri24 7mo agoPlease study why tariffs exist in the first place. It is not to punish a country. It is used as protection from a stronger adversary, especially by developing countries, for balancing trade disparities. Not everything can be lop-sided in favor of US.
- carlosjobim 7mo agoIn the first Trump presidency, it was the same outrage about tariffs, and he wasn't talking (as far as I remember) about punishment and such.
- kshri24 7mo ago> same outrage about tariffs Because US is a developed country. US should not be imposing tariffs and taxing its own citizens for zero gains. > about punishment and such Tariffs is like taking a battle-axe and hacking your own foot. So it is definitely a punishment for US Citizens. Who do you think was paying the exorbitant 40-50% import duties? It is not the exporting country. It is the US Citizen/Company, that was importing the product/raw material, which had to pay those duties. It is a massive tax on US Citizens apart from the tax they are already paying.
- arunabha 7mo agoThe ruling was 6-3 with Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh dissenting. Kavanaugh's dissent is particularly peculiar as he wrote 'refunding tariffs already collected could be a “mess” with “significant consequences for the U.S. Treasury.”' So, the justification is that undoing an illegal act is going to be unwieldy for the govt, so presumably, as a corollary, the govt must be allowed to continue doing illegal acts. This honestly reads as a blanket support for Trump personally, than any reasoned legal argument.
- padjo 7mo agoThat's Kavanaugh for you.
- mordnis 7mo agoI think this is normal for the supreme court, I've heard that they largely upheld abortion in the 1992 case because they thought it would be a mess to undo, even though they thought the original ruling was unconstitutional.
- tracker1 7mo agoI think it was more that they felt that the judgement should include instructions to dismiss any remedial action, not that the actions should continue. Without reading the dissent(s), I can't really say... In the end, the people who bought products that paid more won't get it back... and who will receive the difference is the middle-men who will just pocket the difference profiting from both ends.
- apexalpha 7mo agoIt's odd to me that something as fundamental as 'can the President unilaterally impose tariffs on any country he wants anytime he wants' is apparently so ill defined in law that 9 justices can't agree on it.
- fuzzfactor 7mo ago[flagged]
- Ajedi32 7mo agoFully agree, but that's what happens when you keep piling laws on top of laws on top of laws and never go back and refactor. If I recall correctly, the case hinged on some vague wording in a semi-obscure law passed back in 1977.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- ssully 7mo agoExcept that isn’t relevant at all. This Supreme Court is completely cooked. If the case was “can Trump dissolve New York as a state” you would still have 3 justices siding in his favor with some dog shit reasoning.
- Ajedi32 7mo agoRead the opinions. Both are pretty reasonable. I think the dissent has a good point that a plain language interpretation of the term "regulate imports" would seem to include tariffs. The bigger issue I think is that that statute exists in the first place. "Emergency powers" that a president can grant himself just by "declaring an emergency" on any pretense with no checks or balances is a stupid idea.
- joezydeco 7mo agoKavanaugh's opinion seems to say "well, this would be too hard to undo, so we should just leave it alone and let Trump continue". That hardly seems 'reasonable'. Just lazy and/or partisan.
- csense 7mo agoI don't think tariffs should be imposed capriciously at the President's whim. But I do think tariffs are an appropriate policy tool that should be used to protect US companies against overseas competitors that get government subsidies or other unfair advantages: Low wages, safety regulations, worker protection, environmental rules, etc.
- cogman10 7mo agoI agree with this assessment. And I think that the way it's setup in the constitution is correct, that congress needs to ultimately create the tariffs rather than the president. Creating tariffs unilaterally should almost never happen.
- simonh 7mo agoThey can be and are. The USA had tariffs on many products prior to Trump.
- tracker1 7mo agoI think GPs point was that Tariffs are legitimate as a practice and that some people have been led to believe that they shouldn't exist at all.
- ragazzina 7mo agoCan you make an example of a tariff from the last 100 years that definitely benefitted the US in a long-lasting way?
- tracker1 7mo agoHow do you feel about allowing the import of goods from nations using slavery to create those goods? Would you be okay with a foreign nation undercutting domestic production as a strategy to destroy your industry to control a market? That's aside from my position that most taxes should be at a point of trade/exchange.
- dizzant 7mo agoThe opinion: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-1287_4gcj.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-1287_4gcj.pdf
- wiradikusuma 7mo ago"The ruling applies to his so-called "Liberation Day" tariffs, but not individual tariffs he's imposed on specific countries or products " -- So what's gonna happen next? For countries that negotiated special treatment, they'll be stuck with a (now worse) deal? For other countries, they'll return to the previous deal (non-tariff)?
- mandevil 7mo agoSo I am far from an expert, but I saw that Capital Economics (a Macroeconomic analysis firm) put out a note saying that Trump still had power under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. But there are three catches for that. First, it only lasts for 150 days unless Congress votes to approve them. Second, that it has to apply to all countries equally: meaning that it can't be used to give some countries a break if they sign a deal, so all of the deals are going to be unenforcable on America's end. Third, it caps the tariff rate at 15%. Like with refunds, this is a mess of Trump's own making, and now we get to figure it out.
- rtkwe 7mo agoThey've already voted once that a day isn't a day to avoid having to maintain some of his emergency declarations so I don't think that 150 day timer will actually end up running. https://rollcall.com/2025/03/18/house-majority-rules-when-a-calendar-day-isnt-what-it-seems/ https://rollcall.com/2025/03/18/house-majority-rules-when-a-...
- NooneAtAll3 7mo ago> First, it only lasts for 150 days unless Congress votes to approve them what's the cooldown of this ability?
- appointment 7mo agoAs far as I know none of Trump's deals have been ratified by the Senate. None of them are valid.
- cmrdporcupine 7mo agoThis is one of the things that drives me nuts about certain conservatives here in Canada who have been crying that Carney just "needs to make deal" (on some realpolitik basis) -- that would have been completely insanely bad bargaining. Everyone knew this court date was coming (and also that there's midterms this year). Why on earth would Canada show its belly to Trump when Trump himself was potentially about to be de-fanged? Why ink an unfavourable deal and then find two years later that we're stuck with it while the US political arena has changed?
- excerionsforte 7mo agoShould have been done sooner, I take issue with the 3 who dissented and how long it took there get there. The constitution is clear on this matter. Prices are insane already, we don't need fake emergencies to drive up prices even more.
- lysace 7mo agohttps://apnews.com/live/supreme-court-tariff-ruling-updates https://apnews.com/live/supreme-court-tariff-ruling-updates Furious about the defeat, Trump said he will impose a global 10% tariff as an alternative while pressing his trade policies by other means. The new tariffs would come under a law that restricts them to 150 days. Don't you americans have some kind of mechanism for removing a president from office when the trust is no longer there? I remember hearing a lot about it during the Clinton era in the 90s.
- DangitBobby 7mo agoTurns out, no, that mechanism doesn't actually exist.
- carefulfungi 7mo agoIn the US, Congress has two parts: the House of Representatives (members proportional-ish to state populations elected every 2 years) and the Senate (two members per state with 1/3rd of the body elected every 2 years to a 6 year term). To remove the President (impeachment), requires the House to "indict" the President with a majority vote; and the Senate to "convict" with a 2/3rds majority vote. Both of these bodies are currently controlled by Trump's party. So .. it ain't happening. Trump's party supports his actions. If Democrats win the house in the upcoming (November) elections, it is likely that they can pass an impeachment indictment for a number of causes. It is unlikely that the Senate finds the 2/3rds necessary to remove him from office, though. Trump was impeached by the House twice in his first term (impeachment is rare in US history - it has happened 4 times and 2 of those are Trump); the Senate declined to remove him from office both times. Even after the January 6th riot, with MAGA literally storming through their offices threatening to hang their leader, only 7 Republican Senators voted to impeach. 43 Republicans voted No. With one of them, Susan Collins, famously saying she thought Trump had "learned his lesson." It's fair to say he did learn a lesson; but not the one Collins imagined.
- NickC25 7mo agoGreat, no more tariffs...which means that all those corporations who raised prices to compensate, will willingly drop prices back down to normal levels...right? ...Right?
- tracker1 7mo agoNot likely... most of the inflation pricing increases were just exercises in maximizing profits during emergency circumstances started during COVID and carrying into today. Actually starting in the later 2010's if you look at say fast-food pricing that was dramatically outpacing inflation... like a massive conspiratorial experiment to see how much you could squeeze out of the population in terms of pricing.
- neonmagenta 7mo agoSo this means all prices are finally coming down soon, right? RIGHT?
- tracker1 7mo agoNo... because most conventional pricing increases exceeded the economic demands... at least in terms of groceries, which is one of the bigger areas of growth along with insurance rates (looking at auto insurance, required by govt in most states). The food industries were seeing record profits at the same time of massive inflation, they were maximizing prices to see how much they could grow their wealth, while trying to minimize costs, decreasing quality and just absolutely abhorrent behavior all around. I'm all for capitalism, but I strongly feel that the limitations granted to corporations by govt should come as part of a social contract that has largely been ignored completely. We should curtail a lot of the limitations granted and actually hold executives responsible for their decisions. We should also establish that "shareholder value" is not the only focus that companies should have. A corporation is not a person, that a corporation exists is fine, that they've been shielded from responsibility altogether in that limited liability now means you can literally destroy towns and executives and boards face no consequences is deplorable. Governments should be limited, by extension the shields govt grants to corporations should similarly be limited. When the US constitution was written most corporations were formed around civil projects, then disbanded. Most companies were sole proprietorships or small partnerships. I think we need to get closer back to these types of arrangements.
- dolphinscorpion 7mo agoIran is f-ed!
- tracker1 7mo agoJust a thought.... I would think that "refunds" in the form of US Bonds with varying rates of maturity would probably be appropriate so as not to "shock" the system so to speak. That said, I'm still a proponent of having the bulk of the federal budget based on tariffs and excise taxes. I don't like income and property taxes in general. I'd be less opposed to income taxes if there was truly a way to fairly leverage them, there simply isn't. VAT is at least more fair IMO. I also wouldn't mind a tax as part of leveraged asset loans (including cars/homes) with maybe a single exclusion for a primary residence and vehicle under a given price.
- apexalpha 7mo agoSince tariffs apparently brought in about $200 billion I guess you can add another 0.66% to the 2025 deficit.
- tracker1 7mo agoHence my (somewhat downvoted) comment in that I think the refunds should probably just be issued aa Treasury Bonds with varying maturity dates. Cashing out all t once can only lead to more chaos/disruption to the broader economy.
- micromacrofoot 7mo agoIt's going to be nearly impossible for it to happen at once anyway, it's going to take a long time to unravel this mess
- tracker1 7mo agoThe sad thing is the "paid" back will be to parties that likely already passed on these fees and won't be passing on the returns as pure profit instead... and to middle-men companies who don't really add much value in the first place.
- pseingatl 7mo agoBecause of thw tariffs, it has not been possible to send small packages from Asia to the US. I wonder now how long it will take for service to be restored.
- linhns 7mo agoI believe this is due to the USPS loophole being closed, tariffs only play a small part.
- sowbug 7mo agoIt may also have been because of the end of the de minimis ($800) tariff exemption. Without that exemption, even something valued at one cent would have to go through the import-tax collection process, which meant that small packages were no longer economical to send. That exemption is still gone.
- throw03172019 7mo agoThe damage is done though. Other countries have imposed their own tariffs along with the strained relations with all of our allies.
- motbus3 7mo agoAs a foreigner, I approve the increase of taxes in US. It would fix most of my country economy that needs to pay food in USD
- ChicagoDave 7mo agoSo Trump will now see the economy grow despite his preferences. He’ll take credit for it too. “This was the plan all along.”
- linuxhansl 7mo agoFinally some sanity. The administration has use laws about "national security" and other so call "emergencies" to impose tariffs. If everything is an emergency then nothing is, and that was clearly not congress' intention with those laws. The power to impose tariffs rests with the legislator, not the executive. Of course our congress is effectively useless - we can thank decades of Mitch McConnell's (and others) "not giving the other side anything" thinking for that.
- dmix 7mo agoThe most dangerous part of the current admin is the fealty he demands from congress and how exploits his popularity to be a kingmaker in local elections. This is something FDR did heavily in the 1930s to expand his own power and bully congress into passing the New Deal. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/purge-1938 https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/purge-1938 He also used legally questionable executive orders like crazy.
- shimman 7mo agolol you say FDR was bullying Congress, as if the New Deal coalition wasn't the most successful political movement that this country ever had (won nearly every Presidential election (only losing to the man that defeated Nazis in Europe), had control of the House from like 1932 to 1992, nearly controlled the Senate for just as long too). Attacking FDR, someone who stood up against business interests to defend labor, kinda exposes the game here.
- goldfish3 7mo agoCan always count on HN to mindlessly equivocate.
- dmix 7mo agoThere's a long legacy in America which has led to the expansion of the executive branch. It didn't start with Trump. Almost every power he's abusing was recklessly laid down in prior administrations/congress. FDR caused lots of controversy with how he acted and there was a pull back from executive power, including administrative laws currently slowing Trump down. There's lots of other examples, such as the various emergency powers, including a large string of them for terrorism during Bush and expanded during Obama. I've been posting about this issue on HN long before Trump was in power and plenty of journalists were documenting it.
- stego-tech 7mo ago[dead]
- dec0dedab0de 7mo agoI swear that whoever is advising trump is trying to purposefully give tariffs, and immigration enforcement a bad name. It seriously feels like a scheme to ensure cheap labor.
- oldcigarette 7mo agoYeah the resulting stigma on tariffs is a bit unfortunate. You could imagine a system of tariffs that was intended to set a sort of globalized minimum wage in certain segments. The US could even have foreign entities to distribute the tariff income to the workers in those countries for example. Tariffs are totally a reasonable tool for protecting national security interests or leveling the playing field for the American worker. Unfortunately none of that was done in a coherent or legible way. With all the global fallout and nothing to show for it I'm really not sure I could have come up with a better way to sabotage the United States.
- dec0dedab0de 7mo agoI definitely think we should highly tax, or completely ban imports from countries that basically allow slavery of their working class. Though, if anyone were to bring that up now, it would incite all kinds of emotional attacks. I could imagine people being on board with it if they could get a tariff funded subsidy for things made in America. If the average person got an explicit discount on their Ford because some rich person paid extra taxes on their Audi, then tariffs wouldn't seem so bad. I just think the actual goal is to make them political suicide for decades.
- jacknews 7mo agowhat a mess and, i'll bet, just the first of many
- marojejian 7mo agoSurprised that in all the comments so far, no one has noted that Trump has many fallback options, which he said he'd use to re-create the tariffs, when this happens: https://www.cato.org/commentary/trump-has-many-options-supreme-court-strikes-down-tariffs https://www.cato.org/commentary/trump-has-many-options-supre... https://www.myplainview.com/news/politics/article/trump-has-other-tariff-options-after-supreme-21369397.php https://www.myplainview.com/news/politics/article/trump-has-... A step in the right direction, but there's a lot of progress yet to be made if we want to restrain the executive.
- epistasis 7mo agoThis is what I've been complaining about as much as the tariffs themselves: the president does not levy taxes and should not be levying tariffs except for the very narrow authority that has been used in the past through explicit congressional delegation. Congress is already completely in Trump's pocket. By doing it through Congress, Trump loses most of his bribery and bullying opportunities.
- techblueberry 7mo agoLook I hate Trump as much as the next guy and don't want him power for a multitude of reasons, but there is a big difference between "a government does things I don't like but basically follows the rules to do them" and "a government can act completely unrestrained from the rules". The Trump administration having to do more work to justify their actions in a legal manner is good, and the checks and balances working to maintain the law is good.
- rylan-talerico 7mo agoRelieved to see checks and balances in action, and a largely Trump-appointed Supreme Court enforcing limits set by law
- NalNezumi 7mo agoI wonder how this will be interpreted outside US? realistically there's no way countries affected will get any "sorry" out of this, legally or from the administration. By the neo-royalist [1]interpretation of the current administrations policies, many countries have either decided to pay for the royalty fee to get tariff exemption in a way aristocats in pre-Westphalian Europe dealed with each other. While other stuck with the idea that it's stil the country you do deal with, not royals/aristocats. All those countries (like the Swiss giving Trump golden rolexes for appeasement) that bent their knee: are they now gonna roll it back or are they thinking that the US system is so compromised, current administration will just find another way to play the neo-royalist game, creating new policies similar to the tariff so that each side lose, and then carve out an exemption for "the buddies" of the administration (and if you don't pay the tithe, you shall lose) [1] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-organization/article/further-back-to-the-future-neoroyalism-the-trump-administration-and-the-emerging-international-system/ABB12906CA345BBCA5049B544363D391 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-organi...
- resters 7mo agoThe real issue is emergency powers. Trump defines an emergency as something congress doesn't agree with him on. There has not been any use of emergency powers in recent years that is remotely appropriate.
- Mr_Eri_Atlov 7mo agoFinally some good fucking food
- supjeff 7mo agodoes anybody think prices will fall after this? i don't
- zeroonetwothree 7mo agoThe average effect of tariffs on prices was less than 1% so it would be hard to notice
- Surac 7mo agoThe damage is done. Nobody will trust USA ever again
- 1over137 7mo ago"ever" is a long time. But for years/decades indeed. Certainly the case where I live.
- strongpigeon 7mo agoSo, the majority decision makes sense to me, but I'm annoyed that they're unwilling to tackle whether there was an actual emergency or not. The was no "unusual and extraordinary" situation that happened to warrant this emergency declaration and judging what's "unusual and extraordinary" seems like something that falls pretty squarely in the Supreme Court's purview. But no. The court pretty much says the president decides what's an emergency, leading us to having 51 active emergencies [0], with one starting back in 1979 (in response to the Iran hostage crisis) and with Trump leading the pack with 11 of such declarations. Congress didn't say "the president can just decide and that's it", but that's what's happening because of the SC's deferential posture. Deferring so much to the political sphere (which is the reason behind this posture) is leading to a much less stable and more "swing-y" country. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_emergencies_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_emergencies_i...
- 01100011 7mo agoWell, the good news for Trump and other elites is that we will all take a day off from discussing the Epstein files and wondering - why no one in America is being charged - why the files were so heavily redacted in violation of congress - why the redactions were tailored to protect the names of some powerful people and not victims Trump started talking about aliens yesterday. If the tariffs and aliens can't get people distracted from the Epstein filed then we'll be bombing Iran in 2 weeks...
- paul7986 7mo agoPolitics is always a sh!t show on both sides we humans constantly think the next one will better. It will never be better maybe unless AI destroys society and we all go back to living on the land cause money/greed/power always drives the madness!
- tgv 7mo agoAnd all that at the reasonable costs of a few billion lives. What a bargain!
- jazz9k 7mo ago[flagged]
- interestpiqued 7mo agoSometimes how you do things is important. And tariffs by executive decree is bad policy.
- throwaway-11-1 7mo ago"thank god for tariffs lowering prices" sure man
- Ylpertnodi 7mo agoTrump is bad. As an individual: I'm as-far-as-possible boycotting a lot of US goods (including not using amazon) - even down to the NOT coca-cola cola i now drink. I'll not be visiting the US ever again (regardless of dems or repubs in charge). I'm not alone, either. So yes, i would say he's bad, and terrible for your country, both short, long, and very long term. Let alone the paedo stuff, the grifting, obama on the brain, tarrifs, ice...the economic jeopardy he's playing with the US is astounding to watch. However, i am interested, as i am sure others are - in what way could he be considered 'good'?
- dizzant 7mo agoIn his dissent [1], Justice Kavanaugh states: > Given that the phrase “adjust the imports”—again, in a statutory provision that did not use specific words such as “tariff ” or “duty”—was unanimously held by this Court in 1976 to include tariffs, and given that President Nixon had similarly relied on his statutory authority to “regulate . . . importation” to impose 10 percent tariffs on virtually all imports from all countries, could a rational citizen or Member of Congress in 1977 have understood “regulate . . . importation” in IEEPA not to encompass tariffs? I think not. Any citizens or Members of Congress in 1977 who somehow thought that the “regulate . . . importation” language in IEEPA excluded tariffs would have had their heads in the sand. The roll-call vote for HB7738 (IEEPA) was not recorded [2], so we seemly can't confirm today how any sitting members voted at the time. But there are two members of Congress remaining today who were present for the original vote: Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ed Markey (D-Mass). They clearly both agree with the Court, while having different opinions on the tariffs themselves. Statement by Grassley [3]: > I’m one of the only sitting members of Congress who was in office during IEEPA’s passage. Since then, I’ve made clear Congress needs to reassert its constitutional role over commerce, which is why I introduced prospective legislation that would give Congress a say when tariffs are levied in the future. ... I appreciate the work [President Trump] and his administration are doing to restore fair, reciprocal trade agreements. I urge the Trump administration to keep negotiating, while also working with Congress to secure longer-term enforcement measures. Statement by Markey after previous decision in August [4]: > Today’s ruling in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit makes it clear that President Trump’s chaotic tariff policy is illegal. ... Today’s ruling is an important step in ending the economic whiplash caused by Trump’s abusive tariff authority. N=2 is scant evidence, but it seems like both sides of the aisle "had their head in the sand", or Justice Kavanaugh's historical interpretation is a bit off. [1] p.127: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-1287_4gcj.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-1287_4gcj.pdf [2] g. 22478: https://www.congress.gov/95/crecb/1977/07/12/GPO-CRECB-1977-pt18-3-2.pdf https://www.congress.gov/95/crecb/1977/07/12/GPO-CRECB-1977-... [3] https://www.ketv.com/article/lawmakers-from-nebraska-iowa-respond-to-us-supreme-court-tariff-decision/70434921 https://www.ketv.com/article/lawmakers-from-nebraska-iowa-re... [4] https://www.sbc.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2025/8/ranking-member-markey-applauds-appeals-court-ruling-that-trump-s-liberation-day-tariffs-are-illegal-calls-on-trump-administration-to-provide-immediate-relief-to-small-businesses https://www.sbc.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2025/8/ranking-m...
- interestpiqued 7mo agoSomeone needs to track all the investment "promises" Trump touted he gained through negotiation with foreign countries. I got to imagine foreign countries had no plans on making good on those deals.
- bonif 7mo agoIntercooler
- arttaboi 7mo agoDoes this mean that Make in America subsidies will have to double? Make in America only made sense when offset by high tariffs.
- deadbabe 7mo agoI’m tired of the blackpilled redditors who kept saying this was never gonna happen, the court was just going to do whatever Trump wants. I really need to stop visiting that site.
- arttaboi 7mo agoAlso, who thinks that striking this down now is too little, too late because the rest of the world has already imposed retaliatory tariffs? And what’s the guarantee that they will lower them?
- michelb 7mo agoThe damage has been done, and probably can't be undone. Not sure you can convince me that they didn't think it wouldn't be struck down. It has destroyed a part of the underclass economy and probably some smaller to medium-sized businesses. Pretty sure some people figure they have had a good run with it until now.
- Buttons840 7mo agoJustice delayed is justice denied.
- throw_gold 7mo agoA total mess of an opinion, should have gone all the way, as always only the lawyers win.
- skizm 7mo agoMy first reaction to this was: Matt Levine will need to cut his vacation short. Again.
- breakingrules3 7mo ago[dead]
- EchoReflection 7mo agoWho dissented in the Supreme Court tariff ruling? The dissenters were Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh, with Kavanaugh authoring the principal dissent.[1][2][3] Citations: [1] Supreme Court strikes down tariffs - SCOTUSblog https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/02/supreme-court-strikes-down-tariffs/ https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/02/supreme-court-strikes-dow... [2] Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump (Tariffs) - SCOTUSblog https://www.scotusblog.com/cases/case-files/learning-resources-inc-v-trump/ https://www.scotusblog.com/cases/case-files/learning-resourc... [3] Northwestern experts on SCOTUS decision in tariff case https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2026/02/northwestern-experts-on-scotus-decision-in-tariff-case?fj=1 https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2026/02/northwestern-e... [4] Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump: An Empirical Breakdown of the Court’s IEEPA Tariff Decision https://legalytics.substack.com/p/learning-resources-inc-v-trump-an https://legalytics.substack.com/p/learning-resources-inc-v-t... [5] Live updates: Trump vows new tariffs after 'deeply disappointing' Supreme Court ruling https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/live-blog/-trump-tariffs-ruling-supreme-court-live-updates-rcna252655 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/live-blog/-tr... [6] Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump | 607 U.S. - Justia Supreme Court https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/607/24-1287/ https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/607/24-1287/ [7] [PDF] 24-1287 Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump (02/20/2026) - Foxnews https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2026/02/supreme-court-opinion-trump-tariffs.pdf https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2026/... [8] Why a Republican Supreme Court struck down Trump's tariffs - Vox https://www.vox.com/politics/479919/supreme-court-trump-tariffs-learning-resources https://www.vox.com/politics/479919/supreme-court-trump-tari... [9] Learning Resources v. Trump - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_Resources_v._Trump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_Resources_v._Trump [10] The Supreme Court has struck down Trump administration's use of ... https://www.reddit.com/r/LawSchool/comments/1r9y4z8/the_supreme_court_has_struck_down_trump/ https://www.reddit.com/r/LawSchool/comments/1r9y4z8/the_supr... [11] Supreme Court Strikes Down Use of Emergency Powers for Trump's ... https://www.agweb.com/news/supreme-court-strikes-down-use-emergency-powers-trumps-tariffs https://www.agweb.com/news/supreme-court-strikes-down-use-em... [12] Supreme Court strikes down Trump's tariffs - NPR https://www.npr.org/2026/02/20/nx-s1-5672383/supreme-court-tariffs https://www.npr.org/2026/02/20/nx-s1-5672383/supreme-court-t... [13] Supreme Court Invalidates Executive Tariffs Under IEEPA https://www.currentfederaltaxdevelopments.com/blog/2026/2/20/supreme-court-invalidates-executive-tariffs-under-ieepa-a-technical-analysis-of-learning-resources-inc-v-trump https://www.currentfederaltaxdevelopments.com/blog/2026/2/20... [14] Live updates: Trump pans tariffs ruling, warns he can impose ... https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5746060-live-updates-trump-supreme-court-governors/ https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5746060-live-upd... [15] Supreme Court strikes down most of Trump's tariffs in a major blow ... https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-strikes-trumps-tariffs-major-blow-president-rcna244827 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court...
- epolanski 7mo agoSo, are they gonna be reversed tomorrow? What happens?
- frm88 7mo agoThey will, but Trump signed a new round of global 10% tariffs into being which hs a limited duration of 150 day until Congress has to ratify it. I couldn't find out whether there's a cool down on that, so that he could maybe wait day 151 and then start all over or if it's a one time measure. The new 10% will be effect I've from tuesday and he expects all deals he made with several countries to just continue without protest. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/trump-imposes-10-tariffs-on-all-countries-after-scotus-struck-down-earlier-tariffs/ar-AA1WLVjs https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/trump-imposes-10-tar...
- consumer451 7mo agoIn response, POTUS just declared a global 10% tariff. Does anyone understand if this is legal? https://www.reuters.com/world/china/trump-orders-temporary-10-global-tariff-replace-duties-struck-down-by-us-supreme-2026-02-20/ https://www.reuters.com/world/china/trump-orders-temporary-1...
- morkalork 7mo agoAw shucks, I guess we'll have to wait another year to find out won't we?
- cmurf 7mo agoIn a sense this is the correct level of punishment for all. The courts are slow and deliberative. The Congress could solve this in a week. Impeachment and removal from office.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- originalvichy 7mo agoYou are correct. My country does not have the similar separation of powers the US has. I do not understand why Americans have a hard time realizing this: the President and other elected officials work for YOU. They literally run for office to get the position, and they get voted in. Why would someone let an elected official enrich themselves and their friends with your money? Why would the legislative branch allow that? A populace with a functioning representative democracy deserves its leaders.
- nullocator 7mo agoThere is no mechanism for citizens of the united states to recall a president or member of congress. They must wait 2, 4, and 6 years depending on who they'd like to replace. This contributes to the the current woes as as many members of congress and some presidents (like this one) would certainly undergo recall battles or be immediately recalled. Since we can't though, and elections in this country are a 12-16 month barrage of lies, propaganda and ads by the time voting does come around people just check which ever box matches their team, zero thought given and are thankful the whole mess is over with so they can mostly ignore politics until its time to start complaining again about how poorly they're represented. Repeat.
- remarkEon 7mo agoLink to SCOTUSblog coverage, which has the link to the actual opinion. I tend to eschew early media coverage of things like this and just go to the source. https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/02/supreme-court-strikes-down-tariffs/ https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/02/supreme-court-strikes-dow...
- shevy-java 7mo agoHmm. This is celebrated as a victory - I don't mind that, who likes the crazy pro-russian orange man anyway. But I think it should be pointed out that he went on to use an old law. So the supreme court basically said that this was an unfit use case. Ok. They could just come up with a new law that is tailor-made and may eventually be approved. It may take some time but they could technically do so, right? So I am not sure if that victory dance isn't just too early.
- Ronje 7mo agoYou do realize these tariffs aren't going away. They just used a different legal way to use them. Section 232, 301, 201, 122 and 338 will allow him put these right back on
- Tadpole9181 7mo agoThey still have to pay back all the money collected. And those other tariff avenues have different restrictions, like maximum amounts or limited durations.
- UltraSane 7mo agoThose are more limited in duration and percentage.
- rsynnott 7mo ago> They could just come up with a new law that is tailor-made and may eventually be approved. Allowing Trump to trash the US economy is one thing, but even a Republican congress may be a little unwilling to actively _do it themselves_. Trump won't last forever, and they need to get re-elected.
- herzigma 7mo agoWhat a collosal missed opportunity for Trump. His supreme court was about to save him from himself and his ruinous tariffs. He could have continued to insist that his tariffs were genius while letting someone else take responsibility for bad outcomes. Economy does poorly? Blame the supreme court for striking down his beautiful tariffs. Economy does well? Take credit for shepherding the economy past a hostile court. Remember, in his narcissistic mind, Trump can never fail he can only be failed. Instead he's now insisting he'll restart the tariffs under some even more flimsy interpretation of executive power.
- thrawa8387336 7mo agoIs the US a country or a market?
- Animats 7mo agoUseful site for daily tariff updates: Trade Compliance Resource Hub.[1] They've marked which tariffs are now invalid and which are still valid. [1] https://www.tradecomplianceresourcehub.com/2026/02/20/trump-2-0-tariff-tracker/ https://www.tradecomplianceresourcehub.com/2026/02/20/trump-...
- dgellow 7mo agoDamn, that’s pretty much all of them
- fuzzfactor 7mo agoIt couldn't happen to a more deserving act of vengeance.
- kernal 7mo ago[flagged]
- seanmcdirmid 7mo agoWe already knew that Trump didn't care what the courts said, America is pretty much dead with trump, so nothing shocking, your deserved vengeance wasn’t delivered.
- klipt 7mo agoFree trade is leftist now? I thought a minute ago "communist China" was the protectionist one and "free capitalist America" was the one in favor of free trade.
- mcherm 7mo agoAnything other than fawning allegiance to whatever Donald Trump said most recently is "leftist" now.
- carefree-bob 7mo ago
- ArchieScrivener 7mo agoBritish reporting on American news is barf retarded.
- almosthere 7mo agoThat's unfortunate - it was mostly a tax on the rich!
- kyoji 7mo agolol, I would love to hear how you arrived at this conclusion.
- almosthere 7mo agoIt all depends on what you buy. Mostly the wealthy are buying things these days. Everyone else is buying US grown food.
- agentifysh 7mo agoDoesn't seem like the market has priced the implication of this yet? All in all, this seems like a major major blow to Trump. I'm more impressed that United State's laws are capable of gate keeping the president like this and despite people like Dalio dooming it up, it makes me more confident in America ironically.
- Tadpole9181 7mo agoHave you not seen that Trump already announced he's ignoring this decision and retroactively applying a different justification for the tariffs? He's also imposing a 10% global tariff on top of anything, just for the audacity of trying to stop him.
- Ronje 7mo agoGlad the Tariffs are back on! Good shit trump!
- b0dygu4rd 7mo ago[dead]
- UltraSane 7mo agoThere is no excuse for why the Supreme Court took this long to make this obvious ruling. The delay made the refund situation much worse.
- jongjong 7mo agoWe need to abolish the legal system. Just go back to old-school vigilante justice. It's just too arbitrary. Blanket tariffs were a good idea but if they're being selectively applied, then it's fundamentally unfair; it becomes a matter of who is better at bribing the government using lobbyists. Justice is impossible at scale.
- ngetchell 7mo agoBlanket tariffs were a terrible idea. And the advisors that told Trump he could successfully start a gun fight with just his pointed finger in his pocket should scare us all. No adults in the room to stop him.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- ihaveone 7mo agoWhat a loser
- bdelmas 7mo agoPeople may or may not have voted for Trump but I find this extremely disturbing. Unless it’s illegal when did the DOJ become involved in politics and policies? They are more and more stepping outside of their role. Setting tarifs is one of the tools and role of the executive branch. This will limit even more what a president can and cannot do.
- padjo 7mo agoThe DOJ? What are you talking about? This is the judicial branch, you know one of the three coequal branches of government. It just ruled that the power to set tariffs is not in fact a power of the executive branch.
- bdelmas 7mo agoI am not sure what you are not understanding since you know there are 3 branches. The judicial has no say on this. The judicial branch is more and more pushing political agenda when it’s not their role. Tariffs were always part of the executive branch, it’s by itself an executive action in the spirit of the law. Still if the US decides that it should not be part of the executive branch anymore, it is not to the judicial branch to decide! But it is up to the legislative branch. This is what I am saying. Plus the fact that the US is stripping more and more power from a branch called the "executive branch" making it less and less what it is supposed to do.
- padjo 7mo agoYou said the DoJ, which is part of the executive. The judicial branch just ruled on a matter of law. That's what they do. Also the power of the purse has always been with congress, the constitution is very clear on that. Finally the notion that the US is stripping power from the executive is honestly farcical. The exact opposite has been happening for decades now. If you are a US voter then the reason for the current political situation is becoming very clear to me right now.
- bdelmas 7mo ago
- Dansvidania 7mo agoAnd once again “ask for forgiveness don’t ask for permission”, especially if you’d be asking about fucking up western civilisation (corollary)
- Sparkyte 7mo agoI'm for reciprocal tarifs. I'm just not for the politics and narcisism of the government.
- BrenBarn 7mo agoA stopped clock is right twice a day. Let's not let this decision distract us from the fact that the supreme court is a complete charade, all day, every day. It is a corrupt and meaningless institution and has been for at least 10 years, if not multiple decades.
- Havoc 7mo agoAnd the US circus continues
- hn_acker 7mo agoIn Justice Gorsuch's concurrence, his argument that the majority opinion written by Justice Kagan in this tariffs case is inconsistent with votes of previous Democratic justices in previous cases about executive branch discretion does not hold water [1]. Also, there's this tidbit (where MQD stands for major questions doctrine) [1]: > After falsely claiming that the Democratic appointees “do not object to [the MQD’s] application in this case” (which, in point of fact, they do), [1] https://www.stevevladeck.com/p/212-the-gorsuch-kagan-tariffs-exchange https://www.stevevladeck.com/p/212-the-gorsuch-kagan-tariffs...