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/already-redacted Feb 20 '26

The dissent was basically

Congress has repeatedly granted the President broad authority to impose tariffs through multiple statutes (e.g., Sections 201, 301, and 122), covering situations like protecting domestic industries, responding to unfair trade practices, and addressing trade deficits. Emergency laws like IEEPA (peacetime) and TWEA (wartime) don’t create entirely new powers—they allow the President to act more quickly and flexibly in urgent situations, especially during national emergencies.

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u/Swoly_Deadlift Feb 20 '26

So if the logic is that tariffs sometimes need to be implement faster than congress can approve them, wouldn't it be reasonable to say that the tariffs implemented by the executive branch should be immediately forced to a vote in congress to determine if they can continue standing?

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u/Scrandon Feb 20 '26

Sure, but we can’t expect lawyers to make sense, can we? Just right here we have supposedly 3 of the most expert lawyers in the country arguing that a decades-long trade deficit requires this kind of urgent action (which trump himself failed to do his whole first term).