Supreme Court slaps down $175 billion worth of Trump tariffs as unconstitutional

The Supreme Court rules 6-3 on Friday morning that the president cannot impose tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), as President Trump has done throughout much of 2025. This puts more than $175 billion in U.S. tariff collections at risk of having to be refunded, Penn-Wharton Budget Model economists calculated for Reuters.

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Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts ruled that based on two words in IEEPA, “regulate” and “importation,” Trump has asserted the independent power to impose tariffs on imports from any country, of any product, at any rate, for any amount of time. “Those words cannot bear such weight.” Dissenting were Justices Thomas, Alito and Kavanaugh, ScotusBlog reported. Justice Neil Gorsuch, a Trump appointee, concurred in a 46-page opinion.

The ruling strikes down portions of the tariffs in place on steel and aluminum, as well as those widely arrayed against imports from China, narrowing the scope of Trump’s unilateral tariff powers. Writing for the majority, the Court agreed that Congress never clearly authorized the president to rewrite the tariff schedule for most of the economy under IEEPA. The opinion stressed that tariffs function as taxes on U.S. importers and consumers—powers the Constitution assigns to Congress—and invoked the “major questions” doctrine to say that such a sweeping economic move requires unmistakable statutory language.

Opponents of the tariffs emphasized their economic toll. Duties on imported steel and aluminum raised costs for downstream industries, from autos to construction equipment, while tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars in Chinese goods filtered into higher prices on everything from electronics to furniture. Research from investment banks and branches of the Federal Reserve have repeatedly shown that the financial burden overwhelmingly fell on U.S. companies and consumers, not foreign exporters, provoking furious responses from the Trump White House (Goldman Sachs and the New York Fed, in particular, were on the receiving end).

Retaliatory tariffs from China and other partners further hit U.S. agriculture and industrial exporters, with estimates of lost exports, forgone investment, and higher input costs collectively reaching into the hundreds of billions of dollars over the life of the measures.

The government defended the tariffs as legitimate responses to national security concerns and unfair trade practices, arguing that Congress had clearly intended to give presidents latitude to act swiftly. They warned that invalidating these actions could undermine U.S. leverage with China and weaken the country’s ability to respond to supply-chain vulnerabilities and geopolitical shocks.

The justices left IEEPA itself intact for traditional uses such as sanctions and targeted trade restrictions, but rejected the administration’s claim that an open‑ended “economic emergency” tied to trade deficits justified global, indefinite tariffs.

Additional reporting contributed by Jake Angelo and Lily Mae Lazarus

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