US Supreme Court Rejects Trump's Global Tariffs (reuters.com)
- Reference: 0180831614
- News link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/02/20/1529240/us-supreme-court-rejects-trumps-global-tariffs
- Source link: https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-supreme-court-rejects-trumps-global-tariffs-2026-02-20/
> The justices, in a 6-3 ruling authored by conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, upheld a lower court's decision that the Republican president's use of this 1977 law exceeded his authority.
>
> The court ruled that the Trump administration's interpretation that the law at issue - the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA - grants Trump the power he claims to impose tariffs would intrude on the powers of Congress and violate a legal principle called the "major questions" doctrine. The doctrine, embraced by the conservative justices, requires actions by the government's executive branch of "vast economic and political significance" to be clearly authorized by Congress. The court used the doctrine to stymie some of Democratic former President Joe Biden's key executive actions.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-supreme-court-rejects-trumps-global-tariffs-2026-02-20/
Judical independence (Score:1, Insightful)
This very reasonable decision reaffirms SCOTUS independence from the current administration. However, it creates additional chaos as it is not clear what is going to happen to already collected tariffs.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
This very late and half-assed decision confirms that the so-called supreme court is little more than a rubber stamp for the wanna-be dictator pedophile and his clique who have been the worst enemy of the United States ever. Alongside their stupid voters like yourself.
Re: (Score:1)
> This SCOTUS did more to stand up to Trump Administration than previous SCOTUS did to stand up to Biden Administration. This would be an equivalent of SCOTUS deciding that Biden is not allowed to admit immigrants based on infamous travel app or not allowed to impose DEI requirements on Federal contractors. So enough with your Ree-ing.
It is quite LITERALLY the same SCOTUS. No new members have been added since Trumpskyy's first term and none have left.
Re: (Score:1)
I know [1]Ketanji Brown Jackson [wikipedia.org] is very forgettable outside of being unable to define what a woman is.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketanji_Brown_Jackson
Re: Judical independence (Score:2)
The executive branch is already quietly prepping for this. A big chunk of tariffs will be refunded to businesses and the paperwork for that has probably been in the works for months. The refund will be something like 0.5 percent of gdp. Big. The admin knew they were almost certainly gonna lose this. They just followed through with the process because it makes great social media
Not worried about the refund (Score:2)
It's only $175B.
We were going to spend that much on debt over the next ~3 weeks anyway.
That's the USA in 2026 for you.
Re: (Score:3)
> It's only $175B
That's about $500 per person in the United States. For many families, that's a big deal and would make a significant difference to them. It was taken through an illegal tax and should be returned to them.
It's going to be more than that (Score:2)
The current estimate for family is about $1,000 in extra taxes for 2025. And 2026 is projected to be almost twice that.
Donald Trump basically did the single greatest middle class tax hike in American history short of counting when we instituted income tax for world War II.
Oh and he also let 33,000 violent criminals walk the streets so that he could redirect resources to rounding up dangerous 5th graders.
No joke that is the estimate number of additional actual criminals who are going to get away w
Screed incoming (Score:4, Insightful)
The screed that's about to land on his social media account will be one for the ages, to be sure.
However, you know damn well they're just going to find some other way to implement the asinine tariffs so he can keep toddle stomping every time his feefees get hurt. Then it'll take another year for the courts to invalidate that loophole, rinse and repeat ad nauseum until he's finally gone. Basically, we're stuck with this BS because the courts move at a glacial pace, with apologies to the glaciers.
So he's gearing up for war with Iran (Score:2)
It looks like he's going to use that to eat up this new cycle. Basically it's governing by insanity and chaos. Every single thing that he does is designed to cause so much chaos that it distracts you from the last thing he did.
This isn't me making shit up. It's in project 2025. They call it flood the zone.
Trump is a Kleptocrat (Score:4, Insightful)
He is using his position of power to enrich himself
The USA started out as a federal republic but has since degenerated into a kleprocratic neo-feudalist banana-republic run by a criminal mafia oligarchy
Every issue isn't a nail, so tariffs ain't hammers (Score:2)
In principle, I agree w/ the idea of tariffs. I'm not a "free trade uber alles" guy that most pre-2016 Republicans were, of the schools of Forbes, Kudlow, Limbaugh, Buckley, et al. In the 90s, even though I was pro-GOP on other things, I agreed w/ Dick Gephardt and David Bonior on the need to have fair trade - something that was echoed in Corporate America by the likes of Lee Iacocca, Ross Perot and to an extent, even Trump. All other nations have tariffs on foreign goods - regardless of whether they're
Two details of the ruling: (Score:3, Informative)
1) 30% of Trump's tariffs were ruled legal.
2) The administration has been given one year before the tariffs have to be rescinded.
Kavanaugh is a weasel (Score:3)
serious practical consequences in the near term
So Kavanaugh's basically saying "Even if the tariffs were illegal, they're so darned inconvenient to undo that the regime should get away with acting illegally."
Re: (Score:1)
No, it is very reasonable to consider how undoing tariffs would actually work. Especially when you consider that many of these tariffs were ratified by bilateral trade agreements.
Re: (Score:2)
News flash: Random late-night postings on Truth Social do not constitute "bilateral trade agreements"
And any trade agreement has to be ratified by Congress and the equivalent institution in the other country. None of that has happened.
Re: (Score:2)
Also, Canada was very smart not to enter any of these stupid "agreements" with Trump that would be broken the very next week. It was obvious that the only approach to the irrational Trump regime is to stall negotiations and run out the clock until conditions in the USA change enough that people realize tariffs against allies are idiotic.
I fully expect Canada to slow-walk the CUSMA negotiations because there's little point in making an agreement the USA will break the next week.
here's a link to the decision (Score:2)
[1]https://www.supremecourt.gov/o... [supremecourt.gov]
It's complex, lots of justices agreeing or arguing. It'll keep legal analysts/commentators busy for a while. But its core holding, "IEEPA does not authorize tariffs" is decided pretty comprehensively. (IANAL.)
[1] https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-1287_4gcj.pdf
Lock Trump Up Now (Score:2)
Trump should be locked up for this illegal use of power.
I'm hopeful: Tariffs fuck over conservatives too (Score:2)
Tariffs failed. They didn't accomplish their stated goals. The only thing they did was give DJT leverage to extract bribes and concessions from foreign powers. They made him a king as every leader had to kiss his ring to avoid economic disaster. DJT isn't long for this world...both physically and legally, as his term ends in a little over 2 years. Conceptually, reciprocal tariffs could be an effective way to accomplish the stated goals of reducing unfair state-subsidized trade deficits and righting eco
Don't Get Too Excited (Score:5, Informative)
They already said they had numerous other regulations to keep the tariffs going.
This just strikes down one. One.
Re: (Score:2)
Correct. They can use Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 or Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. This is by no means the end of these counterproductive tariffs.
Re: (Score:1)
The permanent damage has been done and this weak decision upholds the fact no nation can trust the USA again.
To have any hope of undoing the harm they needed to "reach" out and simply repeat the constitution then slap down every tariff as completely out of bounds. Saying congress can't delegate it's own core power away in any of those laws... even then leaders of the world can see the slow collapse going on. To allow congress to remove itself is actually violation of the supremacy clause of the constitution
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
It takes rare kind of mental gymnastics to turn this SCOTUS decision into an accusation of partisanship, however rsilvergun managed to do just that. The level of unreasonableness is truly impressive. If we live in a simulation, someone upstream had to scramble to change it the variable used to record it into long to prevent overflow.
Re: (Score:1)
Oh, I recognize your name. "I absolutely hate Start-Stop systems," writes long-time Slashdot reader sinij (who says they "specifically shopped for a car without one.") Any other Slashdot readers want to share their opinions? You're a moron.
Re: (Score:2)
> It takes rare kind of mental gymnastics to turn this SCOTUS decision into an accusation of partisanship,
What a statistical anomaly that the court finds in favor of the fat orange tub of shit 90% of the time.
[1]https://truthout.org/articles/... [truthout.org]
[2]https://www.americanprogress.o... [americanprogress.org]
[3]https://www.brennancenter.org/... [brennancenter.org]
[1] https://truthout.org/articles/scotus-has-given-trump-favorable-rulings-in-90-percent-of-cases-report-finds/
[2] https://www.americanprogress.org/article/previewing-the-2025-2026-supreme-court-term-20-years-of-the-roberts-court/
[3] https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/supreme-court-shadow-docket-tracker-challenges-trump-administration
Re: (Score:1)
> What a statistical anomaly...
This is only because you don't assign weights based on significance/importance of each decision.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh fuck off. The heritage foundation and project 2025 are known values and the Republicans have been using it as a checklist. Congrats on being completely ignorant of reality, though.
Re: (Score:1)
> Save America: Criminalize conservatism.
I am curious to hear you expand on your ideas. Do you want to actually prosecute people that identify as conservative or only disallow voicing of conservative opinions. Also, would conservatism be a self-identified or anyone you designate as a conservative (i.e., disagrees with you)?
Re: (Score:2)
It was literally a rejection based on the stated reason for using the provision they did. They basically said "this is the wrong form. you need to go back and get a different form".
Re:Don't Get Too Excited (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a win for actually following the delineated powers of our government, at least. Make them pass it through congress if they want to do all this crazy nonsense.
Exactly (Score:1)
They can't pass it through Congress, at least not tariffs on major allies like Canada or UK, which are extremely unpopular. It is huge blunder and avoidable mistake to impose tariffs as a punishment for non-trade related events. Sadly, Trump poisoned the entire concept of "tariffs", so when it is appropriate and reasonable to use them (e.g., China) there will be resistance to do so.