In the latest news on tariffs, the US Court of International Trade struck down the tariffs that President Trump has imposed under the auspices of the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). Going further, the court issued what is known as a “summary judgment,” which in this case effectively means that the court finds that “no reasonable jury could reach a different conclusion.”
As of now, it seems the tariffs are invalidated, though there will almost certainly be confusion and chaos at the ports as everyone tries to figure out how much money is owed, by whom, and to whom.
While this ruling is a welcome development for those of us who understand free trade, it is still a surprising ruling.
First, the Supreme Court has ruled time and again that Congress has the authority to delegate its powers to the president in certain situations. This means that the claim by some that “Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution says this is the realm of Congress, therefore if the president enacts tariffs, it is by definition unconstitutional,” is an argument that the Supreme Court has already explicitly rejected.
Marshall Field & Co. v. Clark, for example, saw the Court uphold the Tariff Act of 1890, which directed the President to suspend duty-free importation of sugar, molasses, coffee, tea, and hides if the President believed that “any country producing and exporting [those products], imposes duties or other exactions upon the agricultural or other products of the United States, which . . . he may deem to be reciprocally unequal and unreasonable.”
As another example, in J.W. Hampton, Jr. & Co. v. United States, the Court upheld the Tariff Act of 1922, which required the President “to increase or decrease tariff rates as necessary to ‘equalize . . . differences in costs of production’ between articles produced in the United States and ‘like or similar’ articles produced in foreign countries.”
One difference between then and today, though, is that in those situations, the President had explicit orders from Congress to adjust tariff rates as necessary to accomplish a given end that Congress determined.
Congress has also passed several laws granting the President “emergency powers” in areas that would typically be within the purview of Congress. The Trading with the Enemy Act, passed in 1917, authorizes the President to, among other things, restrict trade with foreign nations with which we are currently at war. Then there’s the Trade Act of 1962, of which Section 232 was used by President Trump to impose tariffs in 2018. Further, there’s the Trade Act of 1974; President Bush used sections 20 and 301 to impose steel tariffs in 2002 and President Obama used section 421 to impose tariffs on Chinese tires. None of these were challenged as “unconstitutional.” While this list is most certainly not exhaustive, it should serve as a basis to explain that Congress has, in the past, delegated powers to the President and that there is at least some precedent for this happening.
But then there’s IEEPA. Of particular importance here is that no president has ever used it to impose tariffs. Trump in 2025, almost fifty years since its passage, is the first to do so. Thus, it was always going to invite challenge.
The President’s declarations of national emergencies were always shaky. Trade deficits do not constitute an emergency; they are an accounting identity and as such they impose zero harm on the United States whatsoever. And while he never followed through with it, are we really to believe that the fact that Americans now consume media filmed or created in another country is a “national emergency?”
Complicating this, though, is that the Supreme Court has previously sided with the President when it comes to declarations of national emergencies. In both Al Haramain Islamic Foundation, Inc. v. US Dept. of Treasury and US v Groos, the Court held that its own justices “owe a unique deference to the executive branch’s determination that we face ‘an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security’ of the United States.” In part, the president (presumably) has access to information that is privileged and relevant that the Court simply does not have. The Court likely also does not want to open Pandora’s box by hearing a challenge to a national emergency declaration. Doing so would effectively nullify The National Emergencies Act altogether, which was enacted because Congress reasoned that, as a body deliberately designed to be slow-moving, they might not be able to act quickly enough during genuine emergency situations.
In the end, is this the be-all-end-all court ruling that will defeat these tariffs once and for all? Clearly, the answer has to be “no,” as the administration will no doubt appeal. But Trump may have overplayed his hand with these tariffs, and usurped power from Congress that was not actually given. If that is true, then the Trump tariffs are unconstitutional. We will have to wait and see what subsequent courts, like the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and possibly even the Supreme Court have to say on this.
Still, this ruling is a surprise. A pleasant one, to be sure, but a surprise nonetheless.