Editor’s Note
This analysis examines the unprecedented constitutional and economic implications of a 2026 Supreme Court ruling on presidential tariff authority, highlighting the tension between executive power and judicial oversight in trade policy.
When one person holds the entire global economy hostage and even the Supreme Court cannot stop him.
Donald Trump uses this 50-year-old legal maneuver to bypass the US Supreme Court.
In February 2026, the United States faced one of the most dramatic constitutional conflicts in decades. On February 20, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) were unlawful. This effectively eliminated the legal basis for approximately three-quarters of the Trump administration’s total tariff revenue. However, instead of complying with the ruling, the President announced new tariffs the same day under a different legal basis, demonstrating an attitude that swings between constitutional cleverness and institutional disregard. A case praised as a legal victory for the separation of powers now risks turning into an endless cycle of new legal bases, new tariffs, and continued economic uncertainty.
The story of this conflict begins in April 2025, when Donald Trump imposed sweeping tariffs on imports from nearly every country in the world, citing the IEEPA. The original purpose of the IEEPA law, passed in 1977, was to grant the President authority to regulate certain economic transactions during emergencies, such as freezing foreign assets or imposing sanctions on hostile nations. In over fifty years of the law’s history, no president had ever attempted to derive tariff-imposing power from it, and certainly not on such a massive scale.
The White House argued that the tariffs were necessary to address trade deficits and solve various problems declared emergencies by the administration. Trump himself emphasized on his social media platform ‘Truth Social’ that winning on the tariff issue would bring significant financial and security benefits, while losing would leave the country almost defenseless against other nations that had exploited it for years.
The opposition organized and acted immediately. As early as May 2025, the US Court of International Trade unanimously ruled that the IEEPA does not grant the President authority to impose tariffs. In August 2025, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld this assessment in a 7-4 decision, explicitly stating that the fundamental power to levy taxes, such as tariffs, is specifically assigned to the legislature by the Constitution. The court emphasized that imposing tariffs is an essential power of Congress. Trump condemned the appeals court as biased and expressed confidence that the Supreme Court would rule in his favor.
Were $175 billion collected illegally? Trump’s tariff defeat has become an unprecedented financial earthquake.
On February 20, 2026, the Supreme Court delivered its momentous ruling. By a 6-3 majority, the Supreme Court ruled that the IEEPA does not grant the President authority to impose tariffs. In his argument, Chief Justice John Roberts emphasized that the Constitution grants Congress the power to levy taxes and duties. The framers of the Constitution did not assign any portion of the taxing power to the executive branch.
The court further stated that the administration’s interpretation of the IEEPA, which would allow the President to impose unlimited tariffs and change them at will, is an excessive expansion of presidential power over tariff policy. James Sample, a law professor at Hofstra University, described the decision as affirming the fundamental principles of separation of powers inherent in the US Constitution. The President had attempted to impose one of the largest tax increases in the nation’s history on American consumers without involving Congress.
The three dissenting justices were Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Brett Kavanaugh. In his dissenting opinion, Kavanaugh noted that the United States might have to refund billions of dollars to importers who had paid the IEEPA tariffs, even though some of those importers had already passed the costs on to consumers.
Donald Trump had already made it clear on several occasions that he would not change his stance even if he lost in court. Just hours after the ruling, the President held a press conference at the White House and announced that the decision was extremely disappointing.
As widely expected, Trump announced that he would challenge the tariffs struck down by the court on a different legal basis.
That same evening, the President signed an executive order imposing a 10 percent global baseline tariff on all goods imported into the United States, in addition to existing duties. These new tariffs took effect on February 24, 2026. Their legal basis is Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, a trade law that allows the President to impose a temporary import surcharge of up to 15 percent for a maximum of 150 days.
The White House also announced some exceptions. Medicines and pharmaceutical materials, automobiles and heavy trucks, certain food items, critical minerals, and electronic products would not be affected by the new tariffs. Goods from Canada and Mexico under the USMCA trade agreement from Trump’s first term are also exempt. When a journalist asked him if he planned to apply the 10 percent tariff for 150 days or indefinitely, Trump replied,
