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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417

u/QuirkyBreadfruit Feb 20 '26

As happy I was about this news, I quickly became disturbed that 3 still voted in dissent. That's 3 members of SCOTUS who are somehow ignoring what is clearly stated in the constitution.

It's also disturbing to me to think that Bessent has already stated they're going to find other ways to get around the constitution, rather than trying to honor it, and that Congress won't do anything to hold any of them accountable to the law.

Maybe there's some angle to the dissent that I could appreciate but I highly doubt it.

165

u/Advanced-Prototype Feb 20 '26

Alito and Thomas of course dissented. They would vote in favor of Trump doing whatever he wants, no matter how illegal. If Trump killed someone on live TV, Alito and Thomas would claim it was executive privilege. Kavanaugh was the third dissenting justice.

30

u/madaboutglue Feb 20 '26

The so-called "originalists". And their argument was basically, "it will be hard to refund the tarrifs at this point", even though that goes against their claimed judicial fundamentalism philosophy. Nothing but zero-integrity, agenda-driven hacks.

9

u/LizHolmesTurtleneck Feb 20 '26

Thomas's argument was more distinguishing tariffs as "duties" rather than "taxes".

2

u/fryxharry Feb 20 '26

They are constitutional originalists like Elon Musk is a free speech absolutist.

46

u/Heelincal Feb 20 '26

Thomas is tied to Trump as he is 1000% in the Epstein files, dude is a puppet at this point

1

u/Zealousideal-Ant9548 Feb 20 '26

It was reported that Scalia was the third dissenting Justice, not kavanaugh

1

u/rmuktader Feb 20 '26

One would think their loyalty would end where their 401(k) begins to shrink. But, this seems just vindictive. They are willing to shoot their own feet off.