Supreme Court’s Tariff Ruling Is Secretly a Gift to Trump

President Donald Trump was quick to vent his anger at the Supreme Court’s rebuke of his use of emergency powers to impose the largest increase in US tariffs since the 1930s. At a press conference following today’s widely anticipated decision, the president called the justices who ruled against his duties “very unpatriotic and disloyal to our Constitution.” Ahead of the ruling, which invalidated his use of a 1977 statute to roll out the import taxes responsible for almost two-thirds of the $200 billion in tariff revenue collected in 2025, Trump warned that curtailing his tariffing power would unleash an economic crisis akin to the 1929 crash. He said it would mean forgoing trillions of dollars that could help pay off America’s huge public debt. A decision against him would even hinder his efforts to bring about world peace, he said.

The ruling by a 6-3 majority is aimed right at Trump’s favorite power tool. By putting boundaries on a US president’s emergency powers, the high court has defanged Trump. It’s taken away his ability to credibly threaten to rapidly impose tariffs on European nations opposing his plan to annex Greenland or on countries doing business with Iran. And more broadly, it’s put the world on notice that Trump does face some domestic constraints on his ambitions to bend other countries to his will.