Today, The Dispatch published my new article (gift link) on the Supreme Court's tariff decision, entitled "The Supreme Court Spurns a Presidential Power Grab." Here's an excerpt:
On Friday, the Supreme Court ruled on three cases challenging President Donald Trump's massive system of tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA). In a 6-3 decision, the court rightly held that IEEPA does not give the president the power to impose tariffs. Among the cases decided was VOS Selections Inc. v. Trump, which the Liberty Justice Center and I filed on behalf of five small American businesses harmed by the tariffs (we were later joined by prominent litigators Neal Katyal and Michael McConnell). The decision is important for its impact on tariffs, and as a rejection of a sweeping executive power grab. But it also raises a crucial broader—and as yet unresolved—issue: how much deference to give presidential invocations of sweeping emergency powers. That issue is central to various cases working their way through the courts, and may soon arise again in the tariff context….
The main basis for the court's ruling is that IEEPA does not even mention the word "tariff," and has never been used to impose them by any previous president during the statute's nearly 50-year history. The power to "regulate" importation, which IEEPA does grant in some situations, does not include a power to impose taxes.
