The Supreme Court just lifted President Donald Trump’s global tariffs. Contrary to immediate belief, Learning Resources v. Trump does not mark a permanent reduction in presidential power. If he chooses, Trump could reinstate many of his tariffs under other laws in the coming year. But Learning Resources should undermine the left’s attacks on the court and the Constitution, while emphasizing the need for cooperation between the president and Congress in the management of foreign affairs.
Writing for a 6-3 majority, Chief Justice John Roberts affirmed two basic constitutional principles. First, he wrote that the Constitution vests the power to impose tariffs and taxes in Congress alone. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution states that “the Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, imposts, imposts, and excises” and “to regulate commerce with foreign nations.” Second, Congress can delegate that power to the president. Congress has passed a series of trade bills that have done just that. There was no real disagreement among the judges on these two fundamental points.
What the justices are divided on is whether Congress gave the president the power to impose the unique, global, immediate tariffs he imposed last year. On Liberation Day, April 2025, Trump invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA) to impose not only targeted tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China, but also a universal tariff of at least 10% on all imports. Roberts, joined by a rare coalition of three conservative justices (himself, Justices Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett) and three liberal justices (Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson), held that IEEPA did not grant the executive branch the authority to impose tariffs.
The majority has unnecessarily limited the reach of IEEPA. IEEPA grants the president the power, in the event of an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to U.S. national security, foreign policy, or the economy from a foreign country, to investigate, block, “regulate, direct and enforce, nullify, annul, prevent, or prohibit” economic transactions with a foreign country.
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The Supreme Court Building in Washington, DC (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, file)
Trump declared that the large trade deficit created a national emergency; the court did not address this aspect of the President’s tariff orders. Instead, the court ruled that Congress had not granted this power to the executive branch because it had not included the specific word “tariff” in the IEEPA list of powers.
“The President is using extraordinary power to unilaterally impose tariffs of unlimited amount, duration, and scope. In light of the breadth, history, and constitutional context of that asserted authority, he must identify a clear congressional authorization to exercise it,” Roberts wrote. “IEEPA’s authority to ‘regulate imports’ is inadequate. IEEPA contains no reference to tariffs or duties.”
This lecture does not focus on how the United States used IEEPA and its predecessor, the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917. The government and lower courts have long understood the power to “regulate” trade as the power to impose a complete embargo on hostile countries, such as Cuba, Iran and North Korea.
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IEEPA’s reference to the powers to “regulate” and “prevent” the “importation” of foreign goods is more than sufficient to justify the President in imposing tariffs. If the tariffs are sufficiently high, they are simply a tool to ‘prevent or prohibit’ such ‘imports’.
Nevertheless, Learning Resources will ultimately not stop Trump from succeeding. The decision only states that the administration cannot impose tariffs under the IEEPA statute. But Congress has passed several trade bills that clearly grant the president the power to impose tariffs.
Nicknamed Section 232, Section 301, and Super 301, among others, these laws allow the executive branch to impose reciprocal tariffs in response to high tariffs on U.S. goods, to punish unfair trade practices by other countries, or to address an increase in imports of a specific product. And trade law still allows tariffs on specific countries that pose a threat to the national security of the United States. The Supreme Court has not touched these powers, and as Trump made clear during his press conference, he plans to reinstate as many of his tariffs as possible under these other laws.
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In addition to the technical interpretation of trade statutes and their impact on Trump’s economic policies, Learning Resources offers deeper lessons about our constitutional order.
First, the decision belies attacks from the left that the Supreme Court — especially the conservative majority — is simply undermining the Trump administration’s policies. Here, two of Trump’s Supreme Court appointments, Gorsuch and Barrett, joined Chief Justice Roberts, himself appointed by President George W. Bush, in striking down the Trump tariffs.
The government and lower courts have long understood the power to “regulate” trade as the power to impose a complete embargo on hostile countries, such as Cuba, Iran and North Korea.
They were joined by the three judges appointed during the Obama and Biden administrations. These judges didn’t decide the case because they agree or disagree with tariffs, or like Trump or not. They voted simply because of the way they read the absence of the word “tariff” in the IEEPA statute.
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Second, Learning Resources denies left-wing cries that the United States is under an authoritarian regime. Learning Resources once again shows that the separation of powers continues to work.
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts delivered the majority opinion rejecting the Trump tariffs. (Shawn Thew-Pool/Getty Images)
Only Congress has the power to impose tariffs and taxes as part of its general power of the purse. It can delegate that power to the president; and that is true. But when existing statutes are silent, Congress retains the constitutional power to set rates. Trump did not claim the right to unilaterally impose tariffs under his executive power; he continually argued that Congress had simply given him that power in IEEPA. Even if he reinstates tariffs, he will have to use other trade laws enacted by Congress. Using delegated powers under Congress’s terms does not amount to authoritarianism.
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Finally, Learning Resources points the way for future collaboration between the President and Congress. The dissenters – Thomas, Alito and Kavanaugh – argued that the court should have read IEEPA broadly to allow the president to conduct foreign policy and protect national security. While the president has the constitutional responsibility to address foreign threats and advance the nation’s interests abroad, the Constitution grants Congress the tools of the international economy.
To achieve the country’s interests in restoring dominance in the Western Hemisphere or fending off the growing threat from China, the President and Congress will need to work together to ensure that economic policy plays a harmonious role in a full-spectrum U.S. approach to the world.
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