Trump's global tariffs struck down by US Supreme Court

Am 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)

I 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.

It'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.

Great 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.

The actual decision: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-1287_4gcj.pdf

"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)?

In response, POTUS just declared a global 10% tariff. Does anyone understand if this is legal?

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/trump-orders-temporary-1...

Howard 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-wa...

Finally 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.

Let the fun of returning hundreds of billions of the illegal tariff revenue back to importers through litigation begin!

Unfortunately, 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.

Link 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-dow...

I 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.

Hmm. 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.

Should 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.

Also, 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?

It feels like the US-Iran war is inevitable now.

I 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.

This 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.

The opinion: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-1287_4gcj.pdf

The 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.

My first reaction to this was: Matt Levine will need to cut his vacation short. Again.

The 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.

So, are they gonna be reversed tomorrow? What happens?

The damage is done though. Other countries have imposed their own tariffs along with the strained relations with all of our allies.

I 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-organi...

Since tariffs apparently brought in about $200 billion I guess you can add another 0.66% to the 2025 deficit.

Does this mean that Make in America subsidies will have to double? Make in America only made sense when offset by high tariffs.

Justice delayed is justice denied.

Just 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.

Because 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.

A total mess of an opinion, should have gone all the way, as always only the lawyers win.

Fry_Shocked.gif

Also I’m sure that companies will pass the savings on to consumers in the form of lower prices. Right?

…right?

The damage is done. Nobody will trust USA ever again

So this means all prices are finally coming down soon, right? RIGHT?

Surprised 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-supre...

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.

The 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.

what happens to those billions of dollars already collected?

I 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.

Someone 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.

What 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.

As 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

It's okay. When foreign companies fleece the US and jobs continue to be outsourced with no penalty, in addition to rising costs of everything, you can ease your mind because 'Trump bad'.

does anybody think prices will fall after this?

i don't

Is 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?

Relieved to see checks and balances in action, and a largely Trump-appointed Supreme Court enforcing limits set by law

So, 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_i...

Will 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...

Intercooler

> Trump said without tariffs, "everybody would be bankrupt".

Always useful to have a grasp on reality.

The 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.

what a mess

and, i'll bet, just the first of many

Semi-related - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47088609

So Trump will now see the economy grow despite his preferences.

He’ll take credit for it too.

“This was the plan all along.”

I’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.

Politics 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!

Who 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-dow... [2] Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump (Tariffs) - SCOTUSblog 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-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-t... [5] Live updates: Trump vows new tariffs after 'deeply disappointing' Supreme Court ruling 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/ [7] [PDF] 24-1287 Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump (02/20/2026) - Foxnews 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-tari... [9] Learning Resources v. Trump - Wikipedia 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_supr... [11] Supreme Court Strikes Down Use of Emergency Powers for Trump's ... 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-t... [13] Supreme Court Invalidates Executive Tariffs Under IEEPA 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-upd... [15] Supreme Court strikes down most of Trump's tariffs in a major blow ... https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court...

Well, 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...

Finally some good fucking food

Great, 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?

I 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…

Now let's see what will happen.After all J.D.Vance (US VP)famously said:" The judiciary has decided. Now let them enforce it".

In 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

[2] g. 22478: https://www.congress.gov/95/crecb/1977/07/12/GPO-CRECB-1977-...

[3] https://www.ketv.com/article/lawmakers-from-nebraska-iowa-re...

[4] https://www.sbc.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2025/8/ranking-m...

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All 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.

Wait wait wasn't it wholly on Trump's payroll as the dems say?

First victory in more than a year for 'Team Checks and Balances'

Now let's wait for the retaliation of 'Team Orange Dictatorship'

It’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.

Iran is f-ed!

I'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.

Can'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.

He 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.