Supreme Court Blocks Trump Tariffs, the high court concluded that the 1970s emergency statute the president cited does not authorize tariffs, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority.
The court said the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not explicitly permit import duties and noted no president before the current administration had used the statute to impose tariffs of comparable scale, the opinion added.
Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh dissented, with Justice Kavanaugh warning in his dissent that the refund process "is likely to be a 'mess,'" and predicting substantial short-term impacts.
The ruling left open the question of refunds for tariffs already collected, and did not specify whether duties paid at higher rates must be returned, the opinion said.
Shortly after the decision, the president told officials gathered at the White House that he had a contingency plan and ended a meeting early, then announced a 10 percent global tariff using a different legal authority, according to reports.
The president said he would open investigations into unfair trade practices and would not reinstate the de minimis exemption that had allowed many low-value imports to enter tax free, and he later said the global rate would be raised to 15 percent, as reported by the sources.
Implications And Reactions
The ruling removed the administration's principal legal basis for its near-global reciprocal tariffs and fentanyl-related duties, and the government is exploring alternative statutory authorities, trade lawyers and officials said.
Section 122 of the Trade Act allows up to 15 percent tariffs for a limited period and was invoked as a stop-gap, while Section 301 offers broader powers to target unfair trade practices, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said as he announced new 301 investigations and insisted the policy had not changed.
Critics argue Section 122 was designed for old balance of payments problems rather than modern trade deficits, a point made by Bryan Riley, and other lawyers warned Congress or the courts could again challenge any replacement tariffs.
Trade deals negotiated under the shadow of the struck-down tariffs face uncertainty. European lawmakers delayed ratification to seek clarification, a commission spokesman said "A deal is a deal," and Canada’s trade minister Dominic LeBlanc said the decision reinforced Canada’s view that the IEEPA tariffs were unjustified.
The fate of collected revenue is unresolved. Estimates of tariff receipts vary as reported by the articles, with one analysis placing potential refunds at about $175 billion and agencies and think tanks reporting hundreds of billions in gross tariff receipts. The court left refund mechanics to the Court of International Trade, lower courts and Customs and Border Protection, a process lawyers called likely to be lengthy.
