Supreme Court justices sound skeptical of Trump’s tariffs
WASHINGTON— Supreme Court justices on Wednesday cast doubt on President Trump’s claim that he has the authority to impose high tariffs on products from countries around the world.
A majority of the justices, both conservative and liberal, said Congress, not the president, has the authority to impose taxes and tariffs. And they agreed that Congress did not authorize tariffs in the emergency powers law passed in 1977.
“It has never been used to justify tariffs before, and no one had discussed it before this case,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. told Trump’s top lawyer in the courtroom. “Taxing Americans has always been the primary power of Congress.”
Lawyer Gen. D. John Sauer argued that tariffs implicate the president’s authority over foreign affairs. He said these were “regulatory tariffs, not taxes.”
Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan disagreed.
Kagan said imposing tariffs “is a taxing authority delegated to Congress by the Constitution.”
Justice Neil M. Gorsuch said he, too, was skeptical of the president’s claim that he has the authority to impose taxes based on his belief that the country faces a global emergency.
If so, could a future president act on his own and impose a 50% tax on cars because of climate change? he asked.
The court has recently blocked sweeping presidential regulations by Democratic presidents that go beyond an outdated and obscure law, and the same could be requested here, Gorsuch said.
Otherwise, he said, presidents might feel free to wrest taxing authority from “the people’s representatives.”
But Justices Brett M. Kavanaugh and Samuel A. Alito Jr. questioned the challenge to the president’s tariffs.
Kavanaugh pointed to a series of tariffs Imposed by President Nixon in 1971He said Congress later passed the emergency powers bill without explicitly rejecting that authority.
Judge Amy Coney Barrett said she was struggling to understand what Congress meant by the emergency powers law, which the president said could “regulate” imports.
He acknowledged that the law did not mention taxes or tariffs that would raise revenue, but some judges later found that the law allowed the authority to impose duties or tariffs.
The tariff case heard Wednesday was the first major challenge to Trump’s presidential power to be heard in court. It’s also a test of whether the court’s conservative majority is willing to place legal limits on Trump’s executive power.
Trump argued that these import taxes were crucial to revitalizing American manufacturing.
But small business owners, farmers and economists are among critics who say repeatedly imposed import duties are disrupting business and hurting the economy.
Since Trump returned to the White House in January, the court’s six Republican-appointed members have voted repeatedly to strike down judges’ orders that temporarily blocked the president’s policies and initiatives.
Although they have not announced most of the temporary emergency orders, conservatives have said the president has broad executive authority over federal agencies and foreign affairs.
