After the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled against his tariffs last week, President Donald Trump repeatedly condemned the decision, which he preposterously warned will ruin the country unless it is overturned by the Supreme Court. "It would be a total disaster for the Country," Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Friday. "If allowed to stand, this Decision would literally destroy the United States of America." He reiterated that claim on Sunday: "Our Country would be completely destroyed, and our military power would be instantly obliterated," he said, adding that "we would become a Third World Nation, with no hope of GREATNESS again."
Trump's prophecies of doom were not the only implausible aspect of his comments. He described the appeals court as "Highly Partisan," implying that its reasoning was driven by political affiliation, and said the majority was "a Radical Left group of judges," implying that the result was dictated by ideology rather than a careful consideration of the facts and the law. Trump reflexively criticizes judges who rule against him in language like this, to the point that he has stripped ideological labels of all meaning. In this case, his complaints are especially hard to take seriously.
The Federal Circuit's tariff decision addressed two lawsuits, one brought by several businesses and one filed by a dozen states. Both sets of plaintiffs argued that Trump exceeded his statutory authority when he relied on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose stiff taxes on imports from scores of countries.
