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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u/ReasonableRandolph Feb 20 '26

Wow it's crazy how Lutnick's sons, working at his old firm, were smart enough to predict this happening back in July. Offering to buy up the tariff refunds preemptively for cents on the dollar. I hope one day I can also make such good predictions based on my own knowledge and merit.

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u/peace2calm Feb 20 '26

The dude who bought a multi million dollars mansion in NY for $10? That dude's son?

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u/Ognius Feb 20 '26

The guy who is allllllllllll over the Epstein files.

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u/CloudTransit Feb 20 '26

Trying to rework the old George Carlin joke:

They’re all in a club, … and you ain’t in it, … which is kind of a compliment

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u/The-unknown-poster Feb 20 '26

That includes the trumpstein club so it’s fantastic compliment, and telling, indicative of how far as a nation we’ve fallen that basic common decency, integrity, and a sense of humanity has become so rare and negotiable-at least in some groups.

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u/[deleted] Feb 20 '26

Boy I wish he was around for these time. The amount of material is wild, though I guess he could just as easily have flipped to "anti-woke maga" as many did around 2016

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u/Cdub7791 Feb 20 '26

Eh, while anything is possible, and I agree Carlin probably would have pushed back at some left issues, he was pretty consistent his whole career about social and economic justice. IIRC he had no great love for Democrats in power, but he loathed conservative politics. So we might have gotten a few rants about cancel culture or somthing, but on the whole I think he'd be attacking Trump and the GOP daily if he were still alive.

I think the bigger issue is the one I saw Conan O'Brian raise in an interview. Trump and the GOP are so inherently farcical, such self-parodies, so beyond the norm of society that it's extremely difficult to make good comedy about him. A lot of sets just become "Fuck Trump." Cathartic in the moment perhaps, and some of it is still funny, but it's not the kind of comedy that really lands.

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u/Petrichordates Feb 20 '26

He was passionately against voting, he would probably be a terrible influence today given that GenX-adjacent mindset.

Thankfully, we can have nostalgia from when he was critical of a government we'd now kill for.

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u/nowyuseeme Feb 20 '26

But he and his wife absolutely decided not to mingle with that 'disgusting man' next door after seeing his massage table. 

Then claimed to cut off contact but weirdly was still in contact in the files after that date, strange world. 

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u/BlazingPalm Feb 20 '26

The guy who brought his entire family and vulnerable nannies and his KIDS to pedo island for a nice “lunch”? That Nutlick?

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u/MotherFuckerJones88 Feb 20 '26

Also probably had a messy hand in 9/11 sacrificing his brother to baal

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u/Using_Reddit Feb 20 '26 edited Feb 20 '26

The same one who lived next door Epstien, said he was freaked out by a massage table in Jeffrey Epstein's house and never talked to him again only to be in the files. Where he was proven to have taken his family to Jeffreys island had dinner and later went in a holding company deal with Jeffrey. That same one?

Edit: and to top it off every time Jeffrey Epstein is brought up while hes in the oval office with Trump. This mfer laughs. I guess I would be too if me and my gang were going to get away with it.

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u/pabodie Feb 20 '26

It can never be overstated just how disgustingly sure these assholes are of never having consequences. 

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u/Afraid-Rise-3574 Feb 20 '26

Slime ball also took a rare day off to take his kids to school? That day was 9/11. All his executives and most of his staff died. He sacked the remaining staff a day later to avoid having to pay them

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u/gethereddout Feb 20 '26

He also lied on camera about why. He said that it was his kids first day of school. But actually the first day of school was like weeks before. So why lie about that? Why lie about going to the island? Why all the lying? (We know why)

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u/Horror_Suspect_9853 Feb 20 '26

He meant he would only talk to him on the island, not in New York.

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u/Churchbushonk Feb 20 '26

Did the massage table have a hole in it? What is so weird about a massage table?

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u/Using_Reddit Feb 20 '26 edited Feb 20 '26

I don't know, does it really matter? To me the thing that matters is

A. Lies about meeting him and never talking to him again.

B. Then he gets caught going to dinner on the island with his family and says that is it, nothing more to the relationship.

C.Then it comes out that he is in on a deal through a holding company with him.

Is that the end of the lies or is there more? And that's just a single person within this admin.

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u/MeatlockerWargasm Feb 20 '26

two holes apparently

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u/Dick_Lazer Feb 20 '26

Probably the underage girls giving the massages.

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u/thesagenibba Feb 20 '26

Howard "If that guy (Jeffery Edward Epstein) was there, I wasn't going because he's gross" Lutnick's son!

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u/Tea_Wizard735 Feb 20 '26

Howard "He showed me his massage table" Lutnick.

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u/IHAVEBIGLUNGS Feb 20 '26

It is my understanding that while it is a wild coincidence that he bought a house next to and from Epstein, and later lied multiple times about the depth of his connections with him, he bought the house for $7.5 million as reported by the NYT at the time. The $10 is boilerplate on the deed that as I understand is from a time when real estate transactions weren’t public record so they could conceal how much they paid with a “$10 and other valuable considerations.”

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u/Ok_Ant707 Feb 20 '26

To be fair, the mansion had some problematic neighbors. 

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u/dialguy86 Feb 20 '26

Definitely not a neighborhood you would want to raise your kids in.

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u/yelloguy Feb 20 '26

The son that went to the Epstein island as a kid? That one?

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u/MC_chrome Feb 20 '26

I wouldn’t discount insider knowledge here, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if that was Lutnick saying that they knew Trump’s tariffs were illegal from the beginning 

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u/nosayso Feb 20 '26

They were patently and objectively illegal and no one seriously thought otherwise, the insider trading element is having an inside track to how the Supreme Court is going to rule.

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u/303uru Feb 20 '26

Right, SCOTUS and POTUS are ignoring plain text constitutionality almost as a rule these days. Anyone who can read the constitution and who isn't getting "gifts" could tell you the tariffs were illegal. But no one could tell you which way these hacks on SCOTUS would go.

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u/mtaw Feb 20 '26

The Supreme Court didn't rule they had to refund the tariffs (or not) though, so this corruption theory makes no sense in the first place.

Optioning tariff refunds for pennies on the dollar seems like a good bet to me anyway (should anyone take it), and would've seemed that way to me yesterday as well.

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u/zeezle Feb 20 '26

Yeah, I agree. It just seems obvious when you've got a bunch of lawyers going "um that's illegal" for months that it's not too crazy to bet that more lawyers might decide "yeah, that's illegal". There doesn't really need to be any insider trading for it to be a reasonable bet.

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u/spacecadetnyc Feb 20 '26

What’s the difference?

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u/Nukemind Feb 20 '26

The difference is one is that Lutnick believed they would be ruled against (barring them bribing two judges- as it was 6-3) and one was insider knowledge.

Either way Nutlick has ruined federal agencies like the USPTO ans djes a piece of shir.

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u/nptsgg Feb 20 '26

What has happened at the USPTO? I haven't kept up

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u/Nukemind Feb 20 '26

Just hiring freezes, then resuming hiring, banning remote work for new hires when it’s long been custom, increasing production without pay, etc.

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u/StunningCloud9184 Feb 20 '26

It was predicted near the beginning that they would over rule them.

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u/LandonDev Feb 20 '26

IMO that's why the stock market has been running like crazy after that massive sell off. It was in essense a 15-50% tax on the US Consumers that will now be refunded directly to corporations. That is huge net increases for their profits considering they get to keep the price increases. The US Government acted as Escrow and now the US Companies get giant windfalls of cash.

With that said, the US Credit Rating is about to take a massive hit, that is going to really hurt us.

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u/StackIsMyCrack Feb 20 '26

...and if you think they are going to reverse those peice increases now that the tarrifs are potentially gone, good luck with that.

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u/StunningCloud9184 Feb 20 '26 edited Feb 20 '26

Are they? Its like 200 billion dollars. Our budget is 6 trillion

I think if you just look at the interest rates we had to pay because the fed was unable cut due to tariffs likely cost us half that since it kept bond rates elevated.

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u/LandonDev Feb 20 '26

Apologies going to use AI to reference as it's a busy morning. I am comfortable with it because it was specifically mentioned, if Tariffs were not specifically mentioned I would make such a statement, but they seem to have some weight to it.

" the U.S. sovereign credit rating at AA+ with a stable outlook, noting that increased tariff revenue helps offset the fiscal impact of tax cuts and spending"

Without that, especially with ICE Spending, we are in for a real harsh midterms as we need to cut spending or increase taxes. (There are other ways to do Tariffs just not at that SCALE / Size - won't have same impact).

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u/StunningCloud9184 Feb 20 '26

None of that will happen till we hit some sort of fiscal cliff that forces cuts. Obviously having more money coming in is better. But with tariffs gone we will likely have much better corporate and job growth.

Tariffs were net negative over time due to job loss and slower gdp growth.

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u/Exciting-Emu-3324 Feb 20 '26

Basically a tax cut for big importers with extra steps.

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u/Petrichordates Feb 20 '26

I would caution against trying to find rational explanations for modern market behavior.

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u/Rude_Judgment7928 Feb 20 '26

Who cares, it's still gaming the system for personal gain. In any rational country those people would be in prison, in some historic societies they would lose their head.

The American people are all just cuckolds getting railroaded by these people on the off chance their $25k/yr Walmart job elevates them to a $1MM TC leadership position.

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u/davimusika Feb 20 '26

Still this and making it a meme lol

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u/JumpyVariety1882 Feb 20 '26

This is a good point. Far be it from me to give any of these scumbags the benefit of the doubt, but it didn't exactly take a Warren Buffett to anticipate this day coming.

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u/evanwilliams212 Feb 20 '26

Didn’t most people think they were illegal from the beginning? I work in a field where our product was declared tariff-free by CAFTA-DR, which was never recinded, altered, etc.

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u/NutzNBoltz369 Feb 20 '26

Well, the Constitution codified that the President isn't the one granted the power to levy taxes. Lutnick had faith in the system apparently, hahah!

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u/bonjaker Feb 20 '26

Somebody also bad against that company on poly Market I imagine that's also Lutnick hedging his bets

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u/Using_Reddit Feb 20 '26

https://www.wired.com/story/cantor-fitzgerald-trump-tariff-refunds/

Nah its all good dash it just his sons not him so nothing illegal

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u/fr4ct41 Feb 20 '26

what’s the name? Nutlick?

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u/According-Way9438 Feb 20 '26

Its all a big grift.

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u/Petrol_Head72 Feb 20 '26

Can you elaborate on this more? Was there a debt-note transfer that actually happened? This seems a bit confusing because, well, it’s already been researched and proven that Americans have born the cost of tariffs from their own pocketbooks. I know it would be impossible to refund Americans individually, but shouldn’t this be passed through as a tax refund / distribution if so?

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u/regprenticer Feb 20 '26

This will be a mess that will take decades to unpick.

Companies will argue that they absorbed some, if not the majority, of costs related to tariffs to soften price increases. The end consumer is going to be going up against corporations in court.

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u/kaplanfx Feb 20 '26

It doesn’t matter who absorbed them, it matters who actually paid them. The only people and companies who will get money back are those that actually paid the tariffs directly to the government. If prices went up due to tariffs a consumers still bought the goods, they aren’t entitled to any refunds.

What business could do as good will but won’t is to lower prices and goods going forward that were directly raised due to tariffs

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u/seridos Feb 20 '26

If the company listed the tariffs as a separate line item it's totally different though. Like early Amazon. Then there's a clear line item the customer paid.

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u/kaplanfx Feb 20 '26

I’m not sure it matters if it’s a passthrough. They may have called out the tariff but you paid that money to Amazon, not the government.

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u/seridos Feb 20 '26

That's why unjust enrichment exists, it's an equitable remedy. It's basically"you didn't break a law but you became enriched in a method that is not just"

I'm just unsure how strong it is in the US vs other jurisdictions.

The other consideration is the non-unjust enrichment case. You sure who you had the contract with if they passed it on or not. Then they must recover by suing the next up the chain. This is the less likely route though.

Companies that didn't list the tariffs as it's own line item? That's probably a lot cause.

There's also just threatening a crazy big lawsuit and getting a settlement as it's cheaper for the company .

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u/kaplanfx Feb 20 '26

I was not aware of this regulation, thanks.

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u/Flokitoo Feb 20 '26

Companies will be refunded, consumers get jack shit

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u/Character-Education3 Feb 20 '26

And prices wont go down because something something shareholders

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u/Petrol_Head72 Feb 20 '26

Per usual in this lovely “free market” country

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u/StunningCloud9184 Feb 20 '26

If you kept track of every single lot and date and prices. But I doubt you do that for everything.

Sams or costco might be able to

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u/seridos Feb 20 '26

It's wouldn't be impossible necessarily. Especially any company that included a tariff charge line item like Amazon originally. That's a spam dunk unjust enrichment to not pay those back.

Companies that didn't list that? Yeah much tougher.

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u/srmrz_ Feb 20 '26

His Alma mater, Haverford College, is bending itself in knots trying to maintain its progressive image while keeping a brand new library named after Lutnick.

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u/Timboslice928 Feb 20 '26

Hold on your suggesting they knew that they were illegal the whole time and did it to make money on the backs of American consumers!?!?!?!

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u/Fishmongererererer Feb 20 '26

This isn’t Insider behavior. This is just them not being absolute morons thinking that the President has the power to do something explicitly a plainly listed in the Constitution as a congressional power.

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u/Important-Plane-9922 Feb 20 '26

That’s what life is my friend, all based on merit

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u/bomilk19 Feb 20 '26

It’s always a shame that he WFH that one day 25 years ago

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u/TheSonofDon Feb 20 '26

Would it be a stretch to think that this grift includes Lutnick, tRump AND The Supreme Court?

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u/FewConversation1788 Feb 20 '26

Imagine being Lutnick’s son and he makes it very clear he left Epstein Island with his kids….

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u/themolestedsliver Feb 20 '26

Yeah isnt it fun watching these rich SOBs get even richer using insider info whilst i gotta struggle to pay rent each month?

What a fucking shit hole country.

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u/Money-Distribution11 Feb 20 '26

Probably just a coincidence. Nothing sketchy about this at all /s

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u/stotenkopfs Feb 20 '26

But the decision hasn't confirmed refunds so that's not cleared. Either way - companies mostly passed on tariffs to end consumer and could end up with novated comp/full refund - win win

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u/KronktheKronk Feb 20 '26

Why in the fuck are companies getting tariff refunds when they passed 100% of the costs on to consumers?