JUST IN: Things Are NOT Sounding Good At SCOTUS Oral Arguments For Trump’s Tariffs — But I Have Good News!

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Well folks, I’ve been listening in on the Oral Arguments today at the Supreme Court over President Trump’s tariff powers and I have to be straight with you: it’s not sounding good to me.

I’m no legal expert, and I hope I’m wrong, but I’ll show you exactly what I mean.

First though, if you want to listen in for yourself, I’ve got the LIVESTREAM right here:

Ok, so now let’s dig into it a bit, because Eric Daugherty caught the exact same thing I did.

And he did a great job of clipping the exact part that concerned me so I want to show it to you from his post.

Watch here:

🚨 BREAKING: In a worrying development, the U.S. Supreme Court appears VERY skeptical of President Trump’s emergency tariff powers, setting the stage for striking them down.

GORSUCH: “Congress as a practical matter can’t get this power back once it’s handed it over. The president is a one way rachet toward the gradual but continual accretion of power in the executive branch and away from the people’s elected representatives.”

Gorsuch also suggested Trump’s tariffs could be a slippery slope for a president to “ignore” Congress on other things.

KAVANAUGH (paraphrase): Why has no president before invoked tariffs under the IEEPA?

BARRETT: Reciprocal tariffs didn’t make sense for some countries.

“And so is it your contention that every country needed to be tariffed because of threats to the defense and industrial base? I mean, Spain? France? I mean, I could see it with some countries but explain to me why, as many countries, needed to be subject to the reciprocal tariff policy, as are.”

Unbelievable.

Sometimes the Justices will kick the tires and push each side and it doesn’t always indicate how they will ultimately vote, but often times it does.

And what was concerning to me as I listened to this is that the normally Trump-aligned Justices like Gorsuch and Kavanaugh are seemingly not in agreement with the arguments being made by the Trump side.

They’re poking at them a lot and expressing skepticism.

Barrett is less reliable than Kavanaugh and Gorsuch but if we lose those two we will not win this case.

I wish I had better news for you, but my #1 obligation here is to just give it to you straight, and that’s what I’m doing.

Ok, so what comes next?

Well, even though today is Oral Arguments, we won’t actually hear anything on this case for quite a while, almost certainly not until 2026, and potentially as late as April/May of 2026.

That’s some good news.

Because the longer this stretches out, the better for President Trump’s ability to continue to use the tariffs to make peace around the world and to bring in more revenue for the United States.

The other good news is that even if President Trump does not win this case, that’s not the end of the road.

You see, what is being reviewed today is whether President Trump can impose tariffs under IEEPA — the International Emergency Economic Powers Act:

What SCOTUS Is Hearing Today

The Supreme Court is reviewing whether the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) allows a President to impose broad tariffs after declaring a national emergency.

IEEPA lets the President “regulate or prohibit” imports to address an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to national security, foreign policy, or the economy.
However, IEEPA does not explicitly mention tariffs or duties, which are traditionally Congress’s domain under the Constitution’s Tax and Commerce powers.

So the Court is deciding two things:

  1. Does IEEPA actually authorize tariffs?

  2. If it does, is that an unconstitutional delegation of Congress’s power—especially under the Non-Delegation Doctrine and the Major Questions Doctrine (which says major economic actions require clear congressional authority)?

During oral arguments, several Justices expressed skepticism that Congress meant to give the President such broad, open-ended tariff power through IEEPA.

Short Analysis

  • Tariffs have long been viewed as Congress’s turf.

  • IEEPA has traditionally been used for sanctions, asset freezes, country-specific restrictions, not large, across-the-board duties.

  • To approve Trump’s use of IEEPA here, the Court would have to accept a very expansive view of emergency powers.

  • The tone of questioning suggests the Court may limit or reject that expansion.

If the Court rules against Trump here, it doesn’t eliminate tariffs—it just forces him to use other statutes that were written specifically for trade.

Even if the Supreme Court rules IEEPA does not give him sufficient authority to impose tariffs, he will simply pivot to many other possible sources of authority.

Like this:

If the IEEPA Route Fails — Other Possible Authorities

If SCOTUS rejects or significantly limits the President’s use of IEEPA for tariffs, the administration (or a future administration) might turn to several alternative statutory bases for imposing tariffs. According to a Congressional Research Service report, key possible sources include:

  1. Trade Expansion Act of 1962 – Section 232
    Allows the President to impose tariffs or restrictions if imports “threaten or impair the national security” after a Department of Commerce investigation and recommendation.
    This statute has been used (for example, on steel and aluminum) in the past.

  2. Trade Act of 1974 – Section 301
    Authorises the President (via the U.S. Trade Representative) to impose duties or other import restrictions in response to foreign countries’ unfair trade practices.

  3. Trade Act of 1974 – Section 201
    Provides temporary relief (including increased duties) for domestic industries seriously injured by imports.

  4. Trade Act of 1974 – Section 122
    Authorises the President to impose temporary duties “to deal with large and serious United States balance-of-payments deficits.” Note that this statute imposes limits (for example, duties up to 15 % of existing rate) and is more constrained than what IEEPA was claimed to allow.

  5. Other statutory delegations
    There are other smaller or more specialized delegations of tariff or import regulation authority (for example, under the Tariff Act of 1930, discrimination claims, etc.).

And each one of those will take years to play out in the Courts, meaning President Trump will have more than enough time to do whatever he wants to do.

Still though, an outright win here would be much preferred and cleaner.

Here’s a short video clip from my friend Kevin “MeetKevin” Paffrath who aside from a mild flare up of his TDS, I think does a good job of explaining exactly what I told you up above.

Watch here:

Backup video here if you prefer:

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