"I don't think you can just separate it when you say, 'Well, this is a tax -- it's Congress' power,'" #Roberts said. "It implicates very directly the president's foreign affairs power."

Katyal responded that a president’s emergency powers are not limitless, & that the public needs to know what these limits are.

#SCOTUS #law #tariffs #PartisanCourt #ActivistCourt #AbuseOfPower #Trump #economy

#Roberts pushed back on Katyal's claim that #tariffs fall squarely within #Congress' taxing power.

Roberts said: “Sure, the tariffs are a tax, & that’s a core power of Congress, but they are a foreign-facing tax, right? And foreign affairs is a core power of the executive.”

He added that #Trump's tariffs at issue in the case "were quite effective in achieving particular objectives," noting that Trump’s tariffs have undoubtedly given him leverage in making recent #trade deals.

#law #SCOTUS

#ClarenceThomas asked #Katyal if his argument wouldn’t also apply to #embargoes. Katyal said it did not, since #tariffs are ways of regulating revenue.

“Embargoes stop the shipment, tariffs start the tax bill. ...Tariffs are constitutionally special because our founders feared revenue raising, unlike embargoes,” Katyal said. “You know, there was no ‘Boston Embargo Party,’ but there was certainly a Boston Tea Party.”

#SCOTUS #law #PartisanCourt #ActivistCourt #AbuseOfPower #Trump #economy

Justice #Alito probed Katyal’s argument against #Trump’s #tariffs asking, “Do you think all tariffs are revenue- raising?”

Katyal, said it was clear that President Trump’s tariffs were “obviously revenue-raising.” Katyal added that even in the government’s brief to the court it said the tariffs were “going to raise $4 trillion.”

#SCOTUS #law #PartisanCourt #ActivistCourt #AbuseOfPower #economy

Chief Justice #Roberts says the admin’s #tariffs program “implicates very directly the president’s foreign affairs power.”

#Katyal pointed specifically to the example of #Switzerland, a #US #ally with whom we have a trade surplus — NOT a deficit, & #Trump’s imposed tariffs currently sit at 39%. “That is just not something any president has ever had the power to do in our history,” he said.

#SCOTUS #law #PartisanCourt #ActivistCourt #AbuseOfPower #economy

Katyal’s arguments started with a now familiar statement: “Tariffs are taxes,” adding, “Our founders gave that taxing power to Congress alone.”

He went on to say that #Congress knows exactly how to delegate its tariff powers to the executive branch, & every time it has done that it acted “explicitly, always with real limits. #IEEPA looks nothing like those laws.”

#SCOTUS #law #tariffs #PartisanCourt #ActivistCourt #AbuseOfPower #Trump #economy

#Katyal noted what appeared to be skepticism of the #tariffs from Justices Amy Coney #Barrett & Neil M. #Gorsuch, asserting that upholding Trump’s #tariffs would be “a one-way ratchet” of delegating power from #Congress to the presidency, adding “we will never get this power back if the government wins this case.”

#SCOTUS #law #PartisanCourt #ActivistCourt #AbuseOfPower #Trump #economy

#Katyal started off his presentation to the justices by arguing that their decision “comes down to common sense.” He argued that “it’s simply implausible” that when #Congress enacted #IEEPA, it “handed the president the power to overhaul the entire tariff system & the American #economy in the process, allowing him to set & reset tariffs on any & every product from any & every country, at any & all times.”

#SCOTUS #law #tariffs #PartisanCourt #ActivistCourt #AbuseOfPower #Trump

Sauer presented the government’s case for more than an hour. Now up is Neal K. #Katyal, the lawyer for the businesses who have challenged #Trump’s #tariffs. The court has given him 20 minutes to present his argument.

#SCOTUS #law #PartisanCourt #ActivistCourt #AbuseOfPower #economy

Justice #Gorsuch suggests that #Congress may have crossed a constitutional line in delegating too much authority to the president under the administration’s theory.

Gorsuch warns of “a one-way ratchet toward the gradual but continual accretion of power in the executive branch and away from the people’s elected representatives” in Congress.

#SCOTUS #law #tariffs #PartisanCourt #ActivistCourt #AbuseOfPower #Trump #economy

#Gorsuch has questions about both “major questions” & “nondelegation”. He is asking Sauer to provide limits on the broadest reading of the administration’s arguments in favor of #tariffs.

Sauer agreed that another, very different president would have the authority to declare climate change an emergency & impose tariffs to deal with it.

#SCOTUS #law #tariffs #PartisanCourt #ActivistCourt #AbuseOfPower #Trump #economy

#Gorsuch has mostly worried about #Congress giving away too much of its power to federal agencies. It’s unclear whether he’ll have the same reservation with the president involved.

#SCOTUS #law #tariffs #PartisanCourt #ActivistCourt #AbuseOfPower #Trump #economy

#Congress can delegate some of its powers to the executive branch, but there are limits.

Some of the conservative justices want to reinvigorate a legal doctrine that was last used in 1935.

Justice Neil #Gorsuch voted in dissent in June to strike down universal service fee on phone bills as an #unconstitutional delegation of congressional power. The challenges hope to attract his vote on #tariffs on the same basis.

#SCOTUS #law #PartisanCourt #ActivistCourt #AbuseOfPower #Trump #economy

There have been multiple questions about the exact meanings of the words used in #IEEPA, the #law that #Trump is using to impose the #tariffs, particularly as it pertains to presidential powers.

Justices are asking Sauer about he interprets the verbs used in the section under presidential power, & particularly second "B" (in pic), what does it mean to "regulate," the meaning of "importation" & what is meant by "license."

#SCOTUS #law #PartisanCourt #ActivistCourt #AbuseOfPower #economy

Alt...

IEEPA (a) IN GENERAL (1) At the times and to the extent specified in section 1701 of this title, the President may, under such regulations as he may prescribe, by means of instructions, licenses, or otherwise— (A) investigate, regulate, or prohibit- (i) any transactions in foreign exchange, (ii) transfers of credit or payments between, by, through, or to any banking institution, to the extent that such transfers or payments involve any interest of any foreign country or a national thereof, (iii) the importing or exporting of currency or securities, by any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States; (B) investigate, block during the pendency of an investigation, regulate, direct and compel, nullify, void, prevent or prohibit, any acquisition, holding, withholding, use, transfer, withdrawal, transportation, importation or exportation of, or dealing in, or exercising any right, power, or privilege with respect to, or transactions involving, any property in which any foreign country or a national thereof has any interest by any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States; and.

Sauer told justices the #tariffs are “regulatory tariffs.”

“They are not revenue-raising tariffs. The fact that they raise revenue is only incidental,” he said, arguing that #Trump was not exercising an authority to #tax but rather to #regulate foreign commerce.

But Trump has regularly touted the amount of money tariffs have purportedly brought in.

#SCOTUS #law #PartisanCourt #ActivistCourt #AbuseOfPower #economy

Part of the questioning is now revolving around whether the president can use #IEEPA to ban products, but not put #tariffs on them. IEEPA is used to ban imports in a #sanctions context, for example with #trade embargoes on Russia or Iran. But American consumers probably would not respond kindly if #Trump were to ban imports altogether.

#SCOTUS #law #PartisanCourt #ActivistCourt #AbuseOfPower #economy

"Can you point to any other place in the code or any other time in history where that phrase together 'regulate importation' has been used to confer tariff imposing authority?" Justice Amy Coney Barrett asked.

#SCOTUS #law #tariffs #PartisanCourt #ActivistCourt #AbuseOfPower #Trump #economy

Justice Amy #ConeyBarrett is drilling down to a key question in the case: Does the word “regulate” allow #tariffs?

The #Trump admin argues that it does, & that’s why they say he can impose & change tariffs during national emergencies.

Barrett grilled him on that point, questioning whether regulate has frequently been used to allow for tariffs.

Barrett is a conservative who’s gone her own way on some cases, & her vote will be key in the case.

#SCOTUS #law #ActivistCourt #AbuseOfPower #economy

Chief Justice #Roberts says the major questions doctrine seems to apply here. If so, that is bad news for the #Trump admin.

“The vehicle is the imposition of #taxes on Americans, & that has always been a core power of #Congress,” Chief Justice Roberts says.

#SCOTUS #law #tariffs #PartisanCourt #ActivistCourt #AbuseOfPower #economy

#Roberts is questioning the government’s lawyer on why the “major questions doctrine” doesn’t apply here, given the sweeping nature of Trump’s #tariffs. “The justification is being used for power to impose tariffs on any product from any country in any amount, for any length of time,” he says. #Trump used #IEEPA in April to announce a baseline tariff on products from every foreign country, & significantly higher tariffs on exports from several dozen nations.

#SCOTUS #law #AbuseOfPower #economy

Sauer provoked an objection from Justice Sonia #Sotomayor after arguing that #Trump’s #tariffs were not designed to raise revenue for the federal government.

Trump has repeatedly boasted about how much money his import taxes are brining into the Treasury.

“You want to say tariffs are not taxes, but they are,” Sotomayor said.

#SCOTUS #law #PartisanCourt #ActivistCourt #AbuseOfPower #economy

Chief Justice John #Roberts jumped in fairly quickly, questioning Sauer about whether he’s relying too much on an older decision on a different part of the emergency-powers law at the center of the case.

Roberts was a law clerk at the time to the justice who wrote the 1981 opinion, William Rehnquist.

#SCOTUS #law #tariffs #PartisanCourt #ActivistCourt #AbuseOfPower #Trump #economy

Justice Brett M. #Kavanaugh, a key vote, is very focused on President Nixon’s imposition of a 10% tariff in 1971. The #tariffs were part of the “Nixon shock” measures aimed at addressing #trade deficits & combatting #inflation. “What’s the significance of the Nixon example & precedent here?” Justice Kavanaugh asked. “Because I think figuring that out is real important to deciding this case correctly.”

#SCOTUS #law #PartisanCourt #ActivistCourt #AbuseOfPower #Trump #economy

per NYT, Peter Harrell, a visiting scholar at Georgetown’s Institute for International Economic Law, said that although presidents have steadily broadened the use of #IEEPA over the years, “it was definitely intended to constrain authority.” In return, the #Trump admin is arguing that that change was only intended to add process constraints, not to add substantive constraints, on the president’s actions.

#SCOTUS #law #tariffs #PartisanCourt #ActivistCourt #AbuseOfPower #economy

Justice #Jackson raises a key issue: That the emergency #law in question, #IEEPA, was actually passed by #Congress to constrain the president’s authority & reform an earlier law, the Trading With the Enemy Act, or #TWEA, that Nixon had used to issue global #tariffs.

#SCOTUS #law #PartisanCourt #ActivistCourt #AbuseOfPower #Trump #economy

“The fact that they raise revenue is only incidental,” Sauer says of the tariffs. I’m not sure Trump would agree: #Trump has often emphasized the vast amounts of revenue being raised by his #tariffs & their ability to offset #tax cuts.
Justice #Sotomayor is also acknowledging an argument we’ve heard frequently in months of lower court arguments — that the economic emergency law that Trump is using to impose tariffs does not explicitly contain the word tariff.

#SCOTUS #law #AbuseOfPower #economy

Justice #Kagan says #Congress, not the president, had the power to #tax & regulate foreign commerce.

Justice #Sotomayor is pressing the government on the fact that #tariffs are a form of #taxation, which rests in the hands of lawmakers to enact. “It’s a congressional power, not a presidential power, to tax,” she said.

Sauer argues that what is at issue in this case is not the “power to tax,” an authority given to Congress, but the ability to regulate foreign powers.

#law #SCOTUS

#ClarenceThomas first asks about the ‘major questions’ doctrine

The conservative majority blocked President Joe #Biden’s $500 billion student loan forgiveness plan & other of his administration’s initiatives by ruling that #Congress must speak clearly on questions of “vast economic & political significance.”

It’s not clear whether the justices will apply the same principle in the #tariffs case, but lower courts did.

Sauer says it doesn’t apply to foreign affairs issues.

#SCOTUS #law #economy

Arguments are finally getting underway after a late start.

First up is Solicitor General D. John Sauer, Trump’s top Supreme Court lawyer, arguing for the #Trump admin.

The court has allotted 80 minutes for arguments, but they will almost certainly extend well into early afternoon.

#SCOTUS #tariffs #law

#JackSmith has told people in his orbit that he welcomes the opportunity to present the public case against #Trump denied to him by #SCOTUS decision asserting broad presidential #immunity from prosecution & adverse rulings from a Trump-appointed judge on the federal bench in Florida.

#law #SeditiousConspiracy #ElectionInterference #coup #Jan6 #insurrection

The challenges to Trump’s #tariffs reached #SCOTUS after judges in 3 different lower courts ruled against the admin but allowed the import taxes to remain in effect while litigation continued.

In a 7-to-4 ruling in late August, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said the emergency statute did not authorize “tariffs of the magnitude” #Trump announced.

“Whenever #Congress intends to delegate to the president the authority to impose tariffs, it does so explicitly,” the majority said…

“Judges lack the institutional competence to determine when foreign affairs pose an unusual & extraordinary threat that requires an emergency response,” Sauer wrote in a court filing.

Sauer also pointed to a recent concurring opinion from Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh in another case that suggested the 2 doctrines play little to no role in the context of national security & foreign policy emergencies.

#SCOTUS #Trump #law #PartisanCourt #ActivistCourt #AbuseOfPower #tariffs #economy

The other—the “nondelegation doctrine”—says that #Congress cannot transfer unlimited legislative powers—like its taxing authority—to the #ExecutiveBranch.
Solicitor general D. John Sauer said #Trump’s use of the statute to impose #tariffs was not an unlimited delegation of #power. The #law requires declared emergencies to expire in a year & reports to Congress about the tools used in the meantime. Even so, he said Trump’s power to declare an emergency was not subject to review by courts.
#SCOTUS

The case will also force the justices to address 2 doctrines favored by the conservative legal movement, both of which appear to work against #Trump’s claims. The “major questions doctrine” says #Congress must use clear language to authorize executive actions that could transform the #economy. #SCOTUS relied on the doctrine to invalidate many of President #Biden’s key initiatives, including his student loan forgiveness program.

#law #PartisanCourt #ActivistCourt #AbuseOfPower #tariffs

#Trump’s order argued that the #tariffs were needed as a response to “large & persistent” #trade deficits.

Tara Leigh Grove, a UT at Austin #law professor, said the justices could find it a stretch to characterize longstanding trade deficits as an emergency. On the other hand, she said, the statute is broad & appears to give a president a lot of discretion.

“The justices will be struggling with whether they want to second-guess any presidential decision about an emergency,” she said.

#SCOTUS

“Emergency powers are meant to be used in emergencies,” said Michael W. McConnell, a former federal appeals court judge nominated by President George W. Bush, who is leading the coalition of small businesses. “No Supreme Court would want to provoke a confrontation with a president of the United States unnecessarily, but on the other hand, the law is the law.”

#SCOTUS #Trump #law #PartisanCourt #ActivistCourt #AbuseOfPower #tariffs #economy

…But prominent legal figures opposed to the #tariffs, including retired federal judges and a founder of the conservative #FederalistSociety, said the case was not a close call. While past presidents have invoked the emergency statute to impose sanctions or to freeze a country’s assets, #Trump is the first in 50 years to rely on it to impose tariffs.

#SCOTUS #law #PartisanCourt #ActivistCourt #AbuseOfPower #economy

They say that rolling back the #tariffs — & potentially refunding money already collected — could lead to economic ruin akin to the Great Depression, an interruption of #trade negotiations & diplomatic embarrassment. [so don’t break the law in the first place jackasses]

#SCOTUS #Trump #law #PartisanCourt #ActivistCourt #AbuseOfPower #economy

But the #law does not mention the words “tariffs,” “taxes” or “duties.” If the word “regulate” meant “tax,” the small businesses told the court, the president “could tax everything from autos to zoos.”

From the start, the admin has insisted that the consequences for the country are too significant for the court to resist #Trump.

#SCOTUS #PartisanCourt #ActivistCourt #AbuseOfPower #tariffs #economy

The 1977 statute gives the president certain tools to “deal with any unusual & extraordinary threat” to “the national security, foreign policy or economy of the United States.” That includes the power to “regulate” imports.

The president’s lawyers say that language gives him broad authority to impose #tariffs when he believes an emergency exists.

#SCOTUS #Trump #law #PartisanCourt #ActivistCourt #AbuseOfPower #economy

The admin’s on-again, off-again taxes on imports have roiled small businesses, prompting lawsuits from state officials & 6 companies, including the wine importer V.O.S. Selections & the toy manufacturer Learning Resources, whose cases are before the court on Wednesday. Trump’s actions, they say, were unlawful, cut into their profits & forced them to lay off employees & raise prices.

#SCOTUS #Trump #law #PartisanCourt #ActivistCourt #AbuseOfPower #tariffs #economy

#Trump used the statute to announce tariffs on goods imported into the US from China, Canada & Mexico, saying the levies were a punishment for failing to stop the flow of fentanyl. In April, he again relied on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act [#IEEPA] when he announced #tariffs on imports from >100 trading partners, saying they were needed to address #trade deficits with the rest of the world.

#SCOTUS #law #PartisanCourt #ActivistCourt #AbuseOfPower #economy

The case has divided the conservative legal community.

The #Constitution gives #Congress the power to impose #taxes. But soon after taking office, #Trump declared that a 1977 #law gave him the power to impose #tariffs unilaterally during “emergencies”.

#SCOTUS #PartisanCourt #ActivistCourt #AbuseOfPower #economy

…In a sign that the court recognizes the importance of the #tariffs case, the justices set a brisk schedule for the parties to submit written briefs & present oral arguments. They now seem likely to rule swiftly rather than wait until the end of the term next summer, as is their usual practice for the most consequential decisions.

#SCOTUS #law #PartisanCourt #ActivistCourt #AbuseOfPower #Trump #economy

Jack Goldsmith, a Harvard Law School professor & former top #DOJ lawyer under George W. Bush, said that because the legal issues were so closely contested in the #tariffs matter, some justices could
weigh broader implications across the set of presidential cases, concerned about either handing #Trump too much #power — or too many defeats.

#SCOTUS #law #PartisanCourt #ActivistCourt #AbuseOfPower #economy

Other such cases are on the horizon. Next month, #SCOTUS will consider #Trump’s efforts to seize control of #independent agencies. And in January, the justices will weigh his attempt to remove a member of the #FederalReserve Board. The admin has also asked them to consider the legality of the president’s executive order ending #BirthrightCitizenship.

#law #PartisanCourt #ActivistCourt #AbuseOfPower #tariffs #economy

#SCOTUS’ 6 conservative justices have so far been receptive to Trump’s claims of #PresidentialPower. Among other things, they have allowed the admin to withhold funds appropriated by #Congress, kick #transgender troops out of the #military & pursue aggressive #immigration-related policies—but all on a “temporary”, “emergency” basis.

The #tariffs case is the first time the justices have weighed the underlying legal merits of a key admin priority in Trump’s 2nd term.

#law #ActivistCourt #economy

The case “is one of the most important in the history of the country,” #Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “If a president was not able to quickly & nimbly use the power of tariffs, we would be defenseless, leading perhaps even to the ruination of our nation.” 🙄

Observers of #SCOTUS said the justices would be keenly aware that Trump would perceive a legal defeat as a personal blow.

#law #PartisanCourt #ActivistCourt #AbuseOfPower #tariffs #economy

Experts say the case is a tossup that poses difficult legal & political considerations for the justices, made all the more tense by Trump’s efforts to personalize the dispute.

#Trump had mused about attending the court’s argument this week, & has spoken repeatedly of the case’s importance to him. On Sunday, he said he decided against going to court, but stressed that he considered the stakes to be monumental.

#SCOTUS #law #PartisanCourt #ActivistCourt #AbuseOfPower #tariffs #economy

Again & again since #Trump returned to the White House, #SCOTUS’ conservative majority has blessed his boundary-pushing policies….

But on Wednesday, the justices will consider for the first time whether to say “no” to Trump….

At issue is the legality of his…use of emergency powers to impose sweeping #tariffs on nearly every US trading partner. The outcome of the case could significantly affect the global #economy….

#law #AbuseOfPower
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/03/us/politics/supreme-court-trump-tariffs.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare