Six justices of the U.S. Supreme Court finally stood up to Donald Trump and stood for the Constitution in knocking down the president’s tariff madness, ruling correctly that Trump’s attempt to unilaterally issue duties was unlawful. Chief Justice John Roberts and five colleagues, including Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett (who were both nominated by Trump) sided with the law over the man and the man is furious.
Of course, he is praising the dissenters — Brett Kavanaugh, Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito — who seem eager to continue signing off on Trump the king.
Despite the clear ruling overruling the tariffs Trump has imposed willy-nilly since his nutso “Liberation Day” on April 2, Trump is trying again, this time — using another law — with 15% levies, which expire after 150 days unless approved by Congress. He had decreed 10% tariffs on Friday, but upped it to 15% yesterday. Maybe he’ll double it to 30% today.
The court was direct that tariffs, like taxes, can only come from the Congress. Sadly, the Republican Congress has been lying down in Trump’s second term. Will this court ruling give them a spine? We doubt it. And we doubt that the administration will learn any lessons from the court.
Trump made that clear when he called the justices who sided against him, including three conservatives, a “disgrace to our nation” and insinuated everything from foreign influence to some diffuse “radical left” as the cause for the decision, as opposed to the pesky constraints of the Constitution.
Given a Supreme Court that has generally been significantly deferential to Trump on all sorts of matters, using its authority to routinely rubber stamp policies that lower courts had already meticulously struck down, it takes something flagrantly, obviously illegal to be so roundly rejected, and these tariffs fit the bill.
This is, as many have been, a somewhat Pyrrhic victory for the rule of law, as these tariffs should have never gone into effect in the first place, going back almost a year in which the global economy has both been damaged and reoriented away from the United States, diplomatic ties have been strained and businesses internationally and domestically have dealt with the chaos by slowing hiring and delaying investments (those that haven’t already gone under, anyway).
It’s unclear what will be done to remedy some of the damage — including the big question of whether there will be refunds for Trump’s illegal tariff collections, an idea that the president has already waved away — but some of it is irreparable, regardless of the illegality of the policy that wrought it.
The new 15% universal tariffs will only cause more damage, further harming American businesses and isolating us globally. Trump doesn’t care about any of that, so convinced of his own path and his love of the ability to fire off tariffs on a whim. But that’s how our government is supposed to function, which the Supreme Court ratified in their decision.
Having said no to Trump on tariffs, the justices must continue to resist his other predations against the rule of law and the Constitution.
