The Supreme Court on Friday struck down Trump’s sweeping tariffs.
The core of the ruling means that Trump does not have the authority to impose global tariffs without the approval of Congress. The tariffs were one of Trump’s primary policies, but Friday’s ruling places constraints on his perceived president powers.
The decision was a 6-3 split with Chief Justice John Roberts, Justices Gorsuch and Coney Barrett, and the three liberal Justices Jackson Brown, Sotomayor, and Kagan joining forces to ultimately deliver the blow to the Trump administration. Republican Justices Alito, Thomas and Kavanaugh dissented.
“The Framers did not vest any part of the taxing power in the Executive Branch,” Justice Roberts wrote in the ruling.
Ahead of the ruling, Trump spoke in Georgia on Thursday and called his policy of global tariffs common sense.
“Without tariffs, this country would be in so much trouble right now,” he said. “We’re taking in hundreds of billions of dollars.”
Oral arguments over the tariff policy began in November 2025. The issue at hand was whether the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 includes the power to impose global tariffs for an indefinite duration and scope. While the IEEPA allows the president to regulate imports and exports when there is an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to the country, the Constitution says that the power to set tariffs belongs to Congress.
Neal Katyal, the former acting solicitor general of the United States who argued the case before the SCOTUS expressed that the ruling was a win.
“It is a complete and total victory for the challenge to President Trump’s tariffs,” he said. “It’s a reaffirmation of our deepest constitutional values and the idea that Congress, not any one man, controls the power to tax the American people.”
While taxes that Trump imposed on steel and aluminum are still in place, the reciprocal tariffs he placed on various countries in varied amounts, have now basically been ruled unconstitutional.
There is no clear word on whether the government will return the money it has collected from importers.
