Supreme Court strikes down IEEPA Tariffs in 6-3 ruling

CNBC: Supreme Court Strikes Down Trump Tariffs

Full decision in PDF form linked to here: Supreme Court: Learning Resources, INC. v. Trump

UPDATE: After the Supreme Court decision was handed down on Friday, the President announced a new global 10% baseline tariff citing a different law, Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. Then the day after that (Saturday 2/21) he said the previously announced 10% would move up to 15% “effective immediately.”

In an opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts, The Supreme Court of the United States has struck down The Trump Administration’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to enact sweeping so called “reciprocal” tariffs, first announced back on “Liberation Day” in April of 2025.

Along with Chief Justice Roberts, Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, Gorsuch, Barrett, and Jackson voted to rule the IEEPA tariffs unconstitutional.

Dissenting were Justice Thomas, Kavanaugh, and Alito.

This does NOT mean all tariffs are going away. Nor does it mean prices will magically fall overnight. The IEEPA statute is just one of the tools the President and his Administration have been using to enact tariffs. And for the last couple of months, they have been switching to other methods, of which were not challenged in this case.

But the IEEPA tariffs are a big chunk:

CNBC: “U.S. Customs and Border Protection collected about $133.5 billion of tariff revenue under IEEPA in fiscal year 2025 and in fiscal year 2026 through Dec. 14, according to a Cato Institute analysis of federal data. That’s about 60% of total tariff revenue collected during that time.”

Wall Street Journal: “The tariffs before the Supreme Court constituted a large majority of Trump’s duties. Over the next decade, the tariffs the president imposed through his claims of emergency powers were expected to raise about $1.5 trillion, according to the Tax Foundation, representing 70% of Trump’s second-term tariffs.” 

Now that the leverage the IEEPA tariffs provided has been declared illegal, who knows how nations who have struck trade deals with the administration will react. Also unknown is the method and timeline for possible (substantial) refunds, of which the Court didn’t weigh in on, as well as the consequences of issuing such considering the budget deficit.

 

Worth a listen:

Also Related:

• On Tariffs
• The Tariff Times: Updating the Dappered Essentials Shop