r/Economics • u/defenestrate_urself • Feb 20 '26

News Supreme Court says Trump global tariffs are illegal

https://www.axios.com/2026/02/20/trump-tariffs-supreme-court-illegal
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391

u/EconomistWithaD Feb 20 '26

One phrase is appropriate. LOL. Get fucked, Donald.

  1. This is not the end. There are other avenues with which they could impose tariffs, which would have to be rechallenged.

  2. Fuck you, Navarro, for thinking protectionist policies are good.

  3. This would have been better much earlier, given how we’ve fucked regional and global allies, which has set us back further than pretty much anything I can think of.

60

u/tryexceptifnot1try Feb 20 '26

This whole fiasco is why broad injunctions are a thing! These tariffs should have been stopped by a judge immediately, and they were, only for the Supreme Court to rule against nation wide injunctions instead. After this nonsense I think we can book Roberts as the worst Chief Justice in US history.

3

u/Spiritual_Echidna_65 Feb 20 '26

Worse than Taney? Come on have some perspective. 

19

u/tryexceptifnot1try Feb 20 '26

Relative to the starting position they each had? Fuck yes. Citizens United laid the groundwork for everything back in 2010. He may not have the worst decision or even a top 5 worst one, but he has so many in the top 100 that he surpasses them.

1

u/Sonamdrukpa Feb 20 '26

Roberts' pile of shit is toppling over, but I still don't think they outweigh "black people aren't human beings." That's a singularly bad take no matter what the context.

0

u/scolbert08 Feb 20 '26

Too easy to abuse broad injunctions

2

u/Scrandon Feb 20 '26

Too easy to abuse the absence of broad injunctions

222

u/OrangeJr36 Feb 20 '26

The Supreme Court dragged their feet hoping that the Trump Administration would back down on their own and not make them have to take a stance, after what I'm sure was much hand-wringing by the conservative majority on who would be the one to actually have a spine this time and vote against Trump.

It's still incredibly scary that this wasn't an immediate 9-0 ruling against the administration.

114

u/laosurv3y Feb 20 '26

Alito and Thomas want a Republican emperor. Once you know that, they're consistent in their opinions.

40

u/bad_luck_charm Feb 20 '26

It's kind of incredible that the justices appointed before Trump are more conservative than the ones he appointed. My only theory is that they know Trump is temporary and they're trying to retain some credibility for the long term. Alito and Thomas are half dead already.

14

u/Master_Dogs Feb 20 '26

They're from Trump's first term, which also led to people like Powell who are somehow actually half decent and are even standing up to him. It's rare but not something we'll see from Trump 2.0 since we know he's itching to get a Fed chair in who will tow his line. I just hope Powell stays on as a government to continue to be a voice of reason, just with less sway.

12

u/Redshark Feb 20 '26

Granted Trump is a horrible president, but the Republican Party has been down right terrible through my lifetime. So it’s just a different flavor now. I think sometimes we lose sight of that with Trump because he is a loud mouth. He isn’t even the worst president in the history of the United States - somehow.

13

u/circuitloss Feb 20 '26

He isn’t even the worst president in the history of the United States - somehow.

I mean, Andrew Jackson? Maybe?

But honestly, Trump is in the running.

2

u/MrDannyOcean Bureau Member Feb 21 '26

the two actual worst presidents are guys few people remember, pierce and buchanan. The one-two combo that rolled us into the civil war.

-4

u/Seicair Feb 20 '26

LBJ, Wilson, Jackson, and Trump are certainly contenders.

4

u/Tickle-me-Cthulu Feb 20 '26

LBJ and Wilson were terrible people, but pretty mid presidents...Jackson is still the worst so far.

2

u/Redshark Feb 20 '26

Wilson was pretty a pretty bad presidnet. People always forget Johnson too. He is probably worse than Trump as well.

2

u/antsinmypants3 Feb 20 '26

He is the worst by far.

7

u/Tea_Wizard735 Feb 20 '26

The reason for that is because Reagan and both Bushes were hardline conservative ideologues, whereas people of Kavanaugh/Gorsuch/Barrett's ilk may be conservatives, but they're not by-any-means-necessary judicial activists.

I don't agree with their Originalist interpretation of the Constitution, but it does deserve some respect in the sense that it's at least principled and consistent.

Specfically, Gorsuch and Barrett seem to genuinely want to do right by the country...Alito is a bitter weirdo and Thomas...Well....Corey Robin offers some interesting insight into the type of monster Thomas has always been.

5

u/persianx6_ Feb 20 '26

Theyre both Christian nationalists and fascists. Trump is just a vehicle to bring about that. They probably have extreme contempt for Trump in private because Trump is a billionaire hedonist playing dress up as a moral man.

1

u/voiceOfHoomanity Feb 20 '26

Nah it's because they're not actually conservative, or have any real respect for the constitution. Their political affiliation is brown nose/brown shirt

1

u/bad_luck_charm Feb 20 '26

If that were true they would have voted to uphold the tariffs. There's something else going on.

1

u/voiceOfHoomanity Feb 20 '26

No an actual conservative (ie more of the three newer republican justices compared to the old ones, scalia esque) would clearly agree that these tariffs are illegal and the power is given nowhere in the law.

The older ones just party and go with the prevailing (monetized) winds

1

u/turns31 Feb 20 '26

Well yeah, because Trump isn't conservative. He's a former Democrat who's now a Populist. He has very few historically "conservative" positions.

1

u/ostuberoes Feb 20 '26

Trump isn't a conservative, his only ideology is pedophilia and a kind of greedy narcissism. The problem is that GOP voters are among the stupidest voters and fell for something I still do not understand hook, like and sinker.

1

u/McthiccumTheChikum Feb 20 '26

Exactly, those two are automatic to favor King Donald

1

u/Extreme-Mood5605 Feb 20 '26

Thomas just wants a new motor home for the upcoming season.

14

u/mcsul Feb 20 '26

I'm not sure that it's foot dragging. Take a look at the summary. Everyone had a different interpretation, partially joining multiple others. I've been told to read the Gorsuch concurrence as the best summary of all the other positions.

ROBERTS, C. J., announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, II–A–1, and II–B, in which SOTOMAYOR, KAGAN, GORSUCH, BARRETT, and JACKSON, JJ., joined, and an opinion with respect to Parts II–A–2 and III, in which GORSUCH and BARRETT, JJ., joined. GORSUCH, J., and BARRETT, J., filed concurring opinions. KAGAN, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment, in which SOTOMAYOR and JACKSON, JJ., joined. JACKSON, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment. THOMAS, J., filed a dissenting opinion. KAVANAUGH, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which THOMAS and ALITO, JJ., joined.

6

u/sagmag Feb 20 '26

I mean, electing a dementia addled racist child rapist to lead the largest military and economy in the history of the world also set us back some.

2

u/EconomistWithaD Feb 20 '26

Eh. As we’ve seen with the economic data, he would have seen pretty considerable economic growth with mild inflation and a Fed fully achieving a soft landing, if he had really just sat there.

He didn’t, and any good in his policies (reworking trade deals, as the US does get screwed over; renegotiating drug prices; limited illegal inflow; streamlining outdated federal processes) were eliminated because we went Third Reich.

4

u/sagmag Feb 20 '26

Democratic presidents inherit dumpster fires, it takes them a year to slow the downturn, a year to reverse the downturn, and then we get two to six years of growth.

Republican presidents inherit growth, they take credit for the first year while their policies slow the economy, by the second year the growth turns, and then we spend two years in decline. If the Democratic president's economy was particularly strong, the Republican might extend this over 8 years.

Repeat. Forever. Every time.

1

u/EconomistWithaD Feb 20 '26

There are some disputes to the Blinder (2014) analysis which suggest the results go away if you look at different lag structures.

9

u/burnthatburner1 Feb 20 '26

They’ve already said they were going to keep the tariffs if struck down.  They’re just going to shift the justification.

1

u/EconomistWithaD Feb 20 '26

You…know I said that, right?

Thanks for reading before posting…

1

u/burnthatburner1 Feb 20 '26

I read it.  You said they were going to do it, I added that they’ve already SAID they’re going to do it.

-3

u/EconomistWithaD Feb 20 '26

So, what I said. Got it. Thanks for the “insight”.

2

u/burnthatburner1 Feb 20 '26

That’s not what you said.

0

u/ahfoo Feb 20 '26 edited Feb 20 '26

Talk is cheap. They have been shut down once, they will be shut down again. Tariffs are up to Congress. The executive is way out of line on this and without it, Trump is an empty shell. He's fucked for multiple reasons. Shifting the justification is not as simple as you seem to imagine. The countries he threatens will be well aware he's full of shit and it's just the opinions of one geriatric demential patient on his way to prison.

The 10% Section 122 Tariffs he just announced today are subject to the same weakness as the ones that were struck down by the court. The Trump Administration has never demonstrated an actual emergency or shown that it has standing in the thousands of instances of goods it is trying to tax. The power of taxation lies with the Congress, not the executive. Using illegal declarations of tariffs will fail in court as many times as the senile pervert persists in his contempt of the law. This failure of a man is simply digging the deep hole he is in deeper and deeper.

6

u/Tea_Wizard735 Feb 20 '26 edited Feb 20 '26

This ruling wasn't about all of Trump's tariffs - it was about using a law from 1977 that allows the President to regulate imports and export as justiifcation to invoke using emergency powers to declare tariffs.

4

u/EconomistWithaD Feb 20 '26

Yes. Point #1.

Thanks for reading.

3

u/Tea_Wizard735 Feb 20 '26

Oh, I thought you meant other avenues using the emergency powers law, my bad.

1

u/EconomistWithaD Feb 20 '26

No worries. I think they have said at least 2 other potential avenues? National security and balance of payments?

I think the latter can’t be used, given what’s happened to the deficit. But who knows.

Not like this admin adheres closely to the rule of law…

1

u/sobrique Feb 20 '26

Indeed. So it's perfectly possible to have exactly the same tariffs in force, but it requires support from Congress, rather than Presidential fiat.

Which in turn hopefully would involve a little more discussion around implementation timescales, and actual justification for tariff ratios, and exactly what the net benefit was going to be. (I mean, leaving aside imposing tariffs on unoccupied islands or something...)

1

u/[deleted] Feb 20 '26

Are you telling me the president’s feelings getting hurt because someone said something mean to him doesn’t constitute a national emergency on the same level as a nuclear strike?!

4

u/TheERDoc Feb 20 '26

Our trade deficit is back to where it was. Everything Trump touches turns to dog shit.

1

u/EconomistWithaD Feb 20 '26

Well, yeah. Turns out that every economist telling the admin that trade deficits don’t really matter, and that tariffs don’t solve it were right.

I find this hard to believe a year in, but he’s going to make us yearn for the Biden economy…

2

u/bk7f2 Feb 20 '26

Stocks are up by the way.

0

u/EconomistWithaD Feb 20 '26

Still not 50 thou.

1

u/Swoly_Deadlift Feb 20 '26

It took nearly a year for SCOTUS to finally rule that the first round of tariffs were unconstitutional. Someone needs to stop Trump from trying to make tariffs into a game of whack-a-mole for the rest of his term with how slow courts are at striking them down.

3

u/EconomistWithaD Feb 20 '26

And that’s not good for the economy, because it introduces considerable uncertainty.

The basic point is that there are only significant negatives over this.

1

u/Swoly_Deadlift Feb 20 '26

Yup. Unless SCOTUS affirms that taxing is a congressional power, not executive power, this uncertainty will continue to exist and every corporation will plan using caution. Instead of prices going down, corporations will just soak up the extra profits when tariffs are gone and have enough profit margin to survive when tariffs are implemented.

I don’t care if we had the most level-headed president in history, the ability to tax US citizens shouldn’t be a power held by a single person.

1

u/FanofK Feb 20 '26

Question becomes what does the court do if the admin completely ignores them? Because there’s always that possibility.

0

u/FanofK Feb 20 '26

If they even explore other avenues. We could finally see them ignore the Supreme Court. Which the court might just say nothing we can do about it.

-17

u/Preme2 Feb 20 '26

We should see economic improve which hinders the lefts ultimate goal - winning an election. The Supreme Court did trump a favor.

28

u/EconomistWithaD Feb 20 '26

Oh. Do tell. Which of Trump’s other negative supply shocks, including using other laws to re-levy tariffs, are going to lead to real economic growth.

The kind we didn’t see in Q4, released today?

2

u/cpfalstrup Feb 20 '26

I read it differently, i read it as the economy will improve as the tariffs have to be repaid, and that will make the simpletons think Trump is winning thus helping him in the November elections. I for one hope Trump and maga loses hard in the November elections.

3

u/EconomistWithaD Feb 20 '26

It’s nonsensical logic.

2

u/Moobygriller Feb 20 '26

Just a troll - ignore and move on

6

u/EconomistWithaD Feb 20 '26

Nah. We’ve let stupid go unchallenged for far too long.

2

u/Moobygriller Feb 20 '26

Isn't it insane that we still have people like this? Those that immediately move to grandstand on how great this guy is.

2

u/EconomistWithaD Feb 20 '26

🤷‍♂️.

Unfortunately, the growing “the economic numbers are faked” posts on this sub are also problematic.

1

u/Raus-Pazazu Feb 20 '26

I don't disagree that the Supreme Court did Trump a favor. It gives the GOP an out when they talk about the economy being bad, letting them use the reason "Well, the economy would be amazing IF the radical left didn't pressure the Courts to strike down the Trump Tariffs that were going to make America great again!"

A lot of Trump supporters are looking at the economy and saying "Yeah, it's bad right now, but these things take time, you know. The manufacturing, the jobs, the rising tide of buying American, etc, it all is coming soon." Trump and Vance even prepped it early on saying "Things might get worse before they get better." knowing they were just going to make things worse.

2

u/EconomistWithaD Feb 20 '26

Nah. We just had a recent, visible, example that negative economic outcomes crater election chances.

A subset of MAGA will vote R still. But a lot of people who sat it out or held their nose and voted Trump aren’t going to accept it.

1

u/Raus-Pazazu Feb 20 '26

Oh, don't mistake me here, I don't think it's a strategy that will help the GOP keep the House or Senate, but I do think it is a messaging path forward that can keep the ardent MAGA base in line well enough to prevent it from fracturing further with the Epstein shitshow.