OPINION:
Champagne corks briefly popped last week at the five-star resorts where the global elite hang out. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. on Friday put control of the global economy back into the hands of plutocrats, but only for a few minutes.
In the 6-3 decision, the high court’s liberal trio joined his honor and Justices Neil M. Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett in saying that Donald Trump overstepped his authority in imposing import duties on just about every nation. The president did so by stretching a law granting the White House emergency economic powers in times of peril.
After making the required “national emergency” declaration, Mr. Trump wielded the levies as a cudgel to beat other nations into accepting trade terms more favorable to the United States. More important, threats of curtailed access to the vast U.S. market stopped five deadly border conflicts abroad, which in itself is a sign that this was a valid exercise of the executive’s foreign affairs responsibility.
Assessing import duties was always a high-risk gambit with uncertain outcomes. Reasonable adults could express skepticism about the scheme early on, but leftists and squishy Republicans bypassed caution and launched straight into hysterical attacks.
A gaggle of Nobel laureates complained that tariffs would send inflation sky-high. “We anticipate that American workers will incur the brunt of these misguided policies in the form of increased prices and the risk of a self-inflicted recession,” the esteemed economists predicted a year ago.
The latest gross domestic product figure shows the economy is growing, with inflation steady at 2.4%. That’s closer to prosperity than recession. That said, the judiciary is supposed to decide the legality, not the wisdom, of executive moves.
“Accordingly, the President must ‘point to clear congressional authorization’ to justify his extraordinary assertion of that power. He cannot,” the chief justice proclaimed.
Those words are true in isolation, but his court has a habit of picking and choosing when it demands “clear authorization.” Justice Gorsuch sided with the majority because, he says, tariffs are something Congress must approve. As he did so, he highlighted his colleagues’ hypocrisy in twisting old legislation to sanction power grabs such as vaccine mandates, or letting presidents wage war and detain “combatants” without a congressional directive.
“And, yes, it can be tempting to bypass Congress when some pressing problem arises. But the deliberative nature of the legislative process was the whole point of its design,” the justice wrote in his concurring opinion.
Given the congressional inability to do anything other than spend more taxpayer dollars than the IRS collects, don’t expect the august members of the House and Senate to establish a coherent trade policy anytime soon.
Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh’s dissent noted that the ruling limits only one avenue for justifying tariffs. Other possible authorities exist. Mr. Trump didn’t hesitate to respond by hiking tariffs under rules that don’t demand an emergency declaration.
“Therefore, effective immediately, all National Security TARIFFS, Section 232 and existing Section 301 TARIFFS, remain in place, and in full force and effect. Today I will sign an Order to impose a 10% GLOBAL TARIFF, under Section 122, over and above our normal TARIFFS already being charged,” the president announced on Truth Social.
The chief justice probably didn’t anticipate such a fierce response, given how deferential Mr. Trump has been to the bench, but he shouldn’t have been surprised. Tariffs were central to Mr. Trump’s campaign message, which makes this issue more of a political than a legal question. Voters rendered their verdict in November 2024.
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