The United States Supreme Court has ruled that President Donald Trump\u2019s global tariffs are illegal.<\/p>\n
In a 6\u20133 decision written by conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, the court agreed that Trump exceeded his authority by invoking a 1977 law to impose the tariffs.<\/p>\n list of 2 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n The case is the first major challenge to Trump\u2019s policy agenda before a court he reshaped by appointing three conservative justices during his first term.<\/p>\n Trump called the ruling \u201ca disgrace\u201d. The court remanded the case to the US Court of International Trade (CIT) to oversee a refund process.<\/p>\n Here is what we know:<\/p>\n The court ruled that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) does not give the president the power to unilaterally impose sweeping tariffs.<\/p>\n \u201cOur task today is to decide only whether the power to \u2018regulate \u2026 importation,\u2019 as granted to the president in IEEPA, embraces the power to impose tariffs. It does not,\u201d Roberts wrote in the ruling.<\/p>\n In its decision, the justices said the 1977 law was designed to allow presidents to respond to specific national emergencies, such as freezing assets or blocking transactions, but not to overhaul US trade policy through broad, across-the-board tariffs.<\/p>\n The majority concluded that using IEEPA in this way went beyond the authority Congress intended to grant.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat it means first and foremost is that Donald Trump acted illegally. He was breaking the law,\u201d Chris Edelson, a lecturer at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n \u201cDonald Trump said the emergency law allowed him to use tariffs and the Supreme Court said, \u2018Actually, Congress didn\u2019t say that,\u2019\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Trump argued that the tariffs were justified under the IEEPA, saying the US faced six national emergencies.<\/p>\n He described the long-running US trade deficit, which the country has recorded every year since 1975, as one national emergency that threatened economic security.<\/p>\n He also cited the surge in overdoses linked to the powerful opioid fentanyl, arguing that the flow of the drug into the US constituted a separate national emergency requiring executive action.<\/p>\n In the end, the case he presented centred on two tariff groups.<\/p>\n One set was imposed on nearly every country, with Trump arguing they were necessary to address persistent US trade deficits.<\/p>\n The other targeted Mexico, Canada and China, which he said were responsible for the flow of illegal fentanyl into the US.<\/p>\n The Trump administration has not released tariff collection data since December 14.<\/p>\n However, Michael Pearce, chief US economist at Oxford Economics, estimates that more than $130bn in tariffs have already been collected under the emergency declarations.<\/p>\n He said the ruling is likely to trigger a prolonged legal battle over whether that money must be refunded.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat happens? Do they get this money back? The companies are going to want it back. I don\u2019t know how that\u2019s going to work,\u201d Edelson said.<\/p>\n Three conservative justices, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh, opposed the decision.<\/p>\n They wrote that the ruling did not necessarily foreclose Trump \u201cfrom imposing most if not all of these same sorts of tariffs under other statutory authorities\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIn essence, the\u00a0court\u00a0today concludes that the president checked the wrong statutory box by relying on IEEPA rather than another statute to impose these tariffs,\u201d Kavanaugh wrote.<\/p>\n Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, both appointed by Trump during his first term, joined Chief Justice Roberts\u2019s majority opinion in full.<\/p>\n The president still has other legal avenues to pursue trade restrictions.<\/p>\n One option is Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which allows tariffs on national security grounds. This authority was used during Trump\u2019s first term to impose tariffs on steel and aluminium imports.<\/p>\n Another is Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which permits the US to impose tariffs in response to unfair trade practices by other countries.<\/p>\n This was the legal basis for many of the tariffs placed on China during Trump\u2019s earlier trade disputes.<\/p>\n He could also pursue more targeted trade actions through existing anti-dumping and countervailing duty laws.<\/p>\n Trump criticised the ruling, arguing that presidents should have sweeping trade authority.<\/p>\n \u201cI can destroy the trade, can destroy the country. I can do anything I want,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n He complained that while he could impose an embargo, the court\u2019s interpretation meant he could not even \u201ccharge $1\u2033.<\/p>\n \u201cHow ridiculous is that?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Trump also praised Justice Brett Kavanaugh\u2019s dissent, saying it suggested he could rely on other legal authorities in the future.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s right,\u201d Trump said. \u201cIn fact, I can charge much more than I was charging.\u201d<\/p>\n Beyond Trump\u2019s specific tariffs, the ruling could influence how future presidents deploy emergency powers, potentially narrowing the scope for unilateral action.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Supreme Court will follow the law, and that doesn\u2019t mean that Donald Trump will get a blank cheque to do whatever he wants,\u201d Al Jazeera\u2019s Alan Fisher said, reporting from Washington, DC.<\/p>\n Bruce Fein, a former US associate deputy attorney general and constitutional lawyer, described the ruling as a \u201cclear signal\u201d that the president does not have unlimited unilateral authority.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The United States Supreme Court has ruled that President Donald Trump\u2019s global tariffs are illegal. In a 6\u20133 decision written by conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, the court agreed that Trump exceeded his authority by invoking a 1977 law to impose the tariffs. Recommended Stories list of 2 itemsend of list The case is the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12950,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us-canada-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
What has the Supreme Court decided?<\/h2>\n
What was Trump\u2019s legal reason for imposing tariffs in 2025?<\/h2>\n
How much money is at stake?<\/h2>\n
Which judges dissented against the ruling?<\/h2>\n
![\"Members](\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/AP25276586814241-1771614990.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C513&quality=80\")
Can Trump still impose tariffs after the Supreme Court ruling?<\/h2>\n
What was Trump\u2019s reaction?<\/h2>\n
Why does this ruling matter?<\/h2>\n
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