Supreme Court plans rulings for January 14 as Trump’s tariffs remain undecided
By Andrew Chung
WASHINGTON, Jan 9 (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to issue its next decision on Jan. 14 as several important cases are still pending, including the legality of President Donald Trump’s sweeping global tariffs.
The court said on its website Friday that it could issue rulings in cases under discussion if the justices take the bench during the session scheduled for next Wednesday. The court does not announce in advance which cases will be decided.
Judges issued a ruling in a criminal case on Friday.
The challenge to Trump’s tariffs marks a major test of presidential powers as well as the court’s willingness to check some of the Republican president’s far-reaching assertions of authority since returning to office in January 2025. The outcome will also affect the global economy.
During arguments in the case heard by the court on Nov. 5, conservative and liberal justices appeared to cast doubt on the legality of the tariffs Trump imposed by citing a 1977 law intended for use in national emergencies. The Trump administration is appealing lower courts’ rulings that they overstepped their authority.
Trump said tariffs make the United States financially stronger. Trump said in a Jan. 2 social media post that a Supreme Court ruling against the tariffs would be a “terrible blow” to the United States.
To address what he called a national emergency over U.S. trade deficits, Trump invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose so-called “reciprocal” tariffs on goods imported from individual countries (almost every foreign trade partner). He invoked the same law to impose tariffs on China, Canada and Mexico, citing the smuggling of the often-abused painkiller fentanyl and illicit drugs into the United States as a national emergency.
Challenges to the tariffs in cases before the Supreme Court have been raised by businesses affected by the tariffs and by 12 U.S. states, most of which are led by the Democratic Party.
Other important cases are awaiting decisions on the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, including a challenge to a key part of the Voting Rights Act, the landmark 1965 federal law passed by Congress to prevent racial discrimination in voting.
Another involves a challenge, on free speech grounds, to a Colorado law that prohibits psychotherapists from practicing “conversion therapy,” which aims to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of an LGBT minor.
(Reporting by Andrew Chung and John Kruzel in Washington; Additional reporting by David Lawder and Jan Wolfe; Editing by Will Dunham)
