SCOTUStoday for Monday, February 23: Tariffs

Friday morning, the court released its opinion in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, holding that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not authorize the president to impose tariffs. For more on the ruling, see, well, the rest of this newsletter.

Also on Friday, the justices met in a private conference to discuss cases and vote on petitions for review. Orders from that conference are expected this morning at 9:30 a.m. EST. Amy will be writing on any notable decisions by the justices.

This morning, the court will hear arguments in two cases brought by U.S. businesses that are seeking to recover losses they suffered when Cuba’s communist government came to power and seized their assets more than 65 years ago. The cases are Havana Docks Corporation v. Royal Caribbean Cruises and Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Corporación Cimex, S.A.

The court has indicated that it may announce opinions tomorrow and Wednesday. We will be live blogging both days beginning at 9:30 a.m. EST.

President Donald Trump was in “a closed-door White House meeting with governors” when the Supreme Court handed down its ruling on tariffs. One of Trump’s trade advisers alerted the president by handing him a note. “So it’s a loss, then?” Trump responded, according to meeting participants who spoke with The Wall Street Journal. “Trump told the governors sitting before him in the State Dining Room that he looked calm but was seething inside, calling the ruling a disgrace, the people said.” Trump then “cut short a question-and-answer session, leaving the meeting early so he could work on his response to the ruling.”

About three hours after the court announced its decision, Trump held a news conference and spoke about the ruling and his plan to reimpose tariffs. “The good news is that there are methods, practices, statutes and authorities, as recognized by the entire court in this terrible decision, and also as recognized by Congress” that are “available to me as president of the United States,” Trump said, according to NBC News. “Specifically, Trump said that he would, in the next few days, put in place a temporary 10% global tariff on all imports under” a separate law, Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. “If Congress does not act to extend that tariff within 150 days of its implementation, it expires.” Trump repeatedly “praised Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, who voted in the minority to leave his tariffs in place.”

On Saturday, the president said “that he is going to raise his global tariff to 15%,” not 10%, as he’d announced on Friday, according to CBS News. “Mr. Trump said in a social media post that he was making the decision ‘Based on a thorough, detailed, and complete review of the ridiculous, poorly written, and extraordinarily anti-American decision on Tariffs issued yesterday.’” In a different post, he again praised Kavanaugh, Thomas, and Alito. “There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that they want to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!,” Trump wrote.

Friday’s ruling is not expected to end the debate over the president’s authority to impose tariffs. Instead, it will shift the attention to other laws, as the Trump administration uses statutes such as Section 122 to attempt to rebuild the system of tariffs that the court struck down. However, many of these statutes put restrictions on the president’s tariff power, by, for example, requiring an investigation and public hearing on the potential tariff and imposing time limits, according to the Associated Press. Under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, after an investigation and potential hearing by the administration’s trade representative, the president can impose tariffs against countries the U.S. “accuses of engaging in ‘unjustifiable,’ ‘unreasonable’ or ‘discriminatory’ trade practices,” which “expire after four years but can be extended.” Under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, the president can “impose tariffs on imports that he deems a threat to national security,” after an investigation by the U.S. Commerce Department.

During a Sunday appearance on Fox News, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer addressed the ruling and the administration’s plan for tariff refunds. “[I]t’s a matter for the courts,” Greer said, according to Fortune. “They created the situation, and we’ll follow whatever they say to do.” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also deferred to the lower courts during an interview Sunday on CNN. “I’m not going to get out ahead of the court,” Bessent said. “We will follow the court’s direction. But as I said that could be weeks or months away.” Fortune noted that “[m]ore than $130 billion in revenue collected under the IEEPA tariffs is at stake.”