1) US customer pays huge import tax on imported goods in the form of higher prices.
2) Seller sends the collected tax to the US government
3) US government will refund all/most of that tax back to the seller after this ruling
4) Seller gets to keep the returned tax money as pure profit (no refund to customer)
e.g. In a different path, 1 and 2 are the same, but things then diverge.
3) To recoup some of those tariff costs, the company sells the rights to any potential future tariff refunds. They recoup a portion of what they paid immediately but hand away the right to a full refund to another party, such as Cantor Fitzgerald. The seller might use this to reduce prices for their customers, but probably won't. They'll set prices according to what the market will support.
4) US government will refund all/most of that tax back to companies, like Cantor Fitzgerald, that bought the rights to tariff refunds.
5) Seller doesn't get any extra money back, so there's no money to refund to consumers.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Cantor Fitzgerald, while just one of the companies doing this, was formerly headed by Howard Lutnick and is currently owned and operated by his sons.
The importer CAN be the seller, but other times the importer is a middleman in the supply chain.
I could see an argument that they don't have a legal obligation to pass the refunds on to their customers, any more than my local grocery store owes me 5 cents for the gallon of milk I bought last year if the store discovers that their wholesaler had been mistakenly overcharging them.
That's what matters, don't care if it's the seller or a middleman that gets this money.
That's really a shame for american citizens, i'd be furious if i was american.
So it matters how we’re interpreting “paying”. One way to look at it is that if the cost was passed on to the consumer, the consumer paid it. The importer simply handed over the money.
I think I'm kidding, but I'm not really sure anymore.
Indiana charges sales tax like a lot of states, but only on things sold in the state or from a company located in the state. If you ordered something from California or overseas, no sales tax was charged. The law required you to track these purchases and report it on your tax return so you can pay the required sales tax.
That said, enforcement wasn't good and I don't know a single person that actually did so. A common tax fraud for the average person, I guess.
And honestly, I think any emergency federal law would be similar: It wouldn't be for refunds for the masses, but for surveillance and extortion.
That topic will surely go back to the courts, kicking and screaming
Seller sold forward contracts to recoup tariffs at a lower price and passed on the benefits to the consumers already. E.g. For every $1 seller paid as tariffs, seller sold a contract to someone for $0.25 saying if government ever refunds the buyer of the contract can keep it. The $0.25 already passed to consumers as benefits.
> Seller gets to keep the returned tax money as pure profit (no refund to customer)
Not to the specific customer but this benefits will now get passed to future customers as prices will be lowered than usual (lower than pre-tariff prices) due to competition.
Note that consumers who paid more were not necessarily paying the tariffs. Stores like Costco, Walmart increased prices across the board and socialized the impact of tariffs. Even if there was some mechanism to return tariff money to consumer, there is no way you could return it to someone who paid higher due to this socialized nature of price increase.
Strictly speaking it depends on the Incoterms agreed upon by the seller and buyer[1]. If the Incoterms are DDP, then the seller should pay import duties and taxes and as such is involved.
Of course sellers are typically trying to run a business, so they'll bake the taxes and import duties into the sales price. So effectively the buyer ends up paying for it, just indirectly.
This was relevant when the tariffs were introduced, as sellers with DDP goods in transit had committed to a sales price which included any tariffs and would have to swallow the extra costs when they got the bill from the freight forwarder.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incoterms#Allocations_of_risks...
(I know the answer is practically ’no’, but it does still seem to me that the bureaucracy and companies that went along with this obviously illegal operation bear some culpability...)
And then not all tariff was absorbed by importer - some suppliers would have cut prices to compensate wholly or partly. We would never know as it is likely buried in various other discounts and contract terms not a line item that says "for tariff". Down the chain, others with margins could have done the same. That's probably why the inflation impact was less than scary scenarios painted by some economists.
I can see a situation where the courts find that a general price increase is simply they - an offer to sell at a price the buyer accepted regardless of the seller's motivation to increase pricing. However a line item that very clearly states that a charge is for duties paid might be treated differently?
Very curious to see what the legal minds have to say in this scenario. In a way it may punish companies for doing what many to most consumers feel was the "right" thing to do - add a surcharge that can easily be removed if the situation changed in the future vs. using a general increase as a new price anchor.
Seller may not reduce the price as well. Thus, continues to keep the raised price due to tariffs as free profit.
Not according to the current administration: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/CODFD3j623E
According to them, China and others are paying the tariffs, so any refunds clearly have to go to China...
Though this is obviously a first so expect a billion lawsuits about this.
Elections have consequences.
Is there a reason to believe, or evidence, that it's not a mixture of the two?
edit: I want to highlight esseph's reply has a link to evidence that last year's tarrifs were passed off 90% to consumers, which is exactly the type of info I was looking for.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/petercohan/2026/02/15/consumers...
"Importers and consumers in the US bear 96 percent of the tariff burden."
I don't recall seeing a split between domestic consumers and domestic companies, but I'm fairly sure that consumers are paying more than the 10% that foreign entities are.
That makes zero sense. You mean “by lowering the profit margin on the goods sold to the US by that specific company”.
Countries don’t pay tarrifs (bar state intervention), companies do.
But yes, it’s probably a mix of the two: raising prices and lowering profit margins.
The businesses in the other countries are, you know, businesses. Even if it were Chinese companies that were paying the tariffs, that will be baked into the cost of the good.
This is literally first-day economics. No such thing as a free lunch. The cost of the item that the end user pays should reflect all costs associated with production and distribution to that end user.
I have no idea how the fuck the rumor that these tariffs will be “paid by other countries” started. If there are suspicions that the tariffs are temporary then they might be willing to eat the cost temporarily so it’s not passed onto the consumer immediately, but that’s inherently temporary and not sustainable especially if it would make it so these companies are losing money.
[1] https://www.tradecomplianceresourcehub.com/2026/02/20/trump-...
Section 122: Implemented (effective Feb. 24, 2026) [1]
Amusingly, the new 10% tariff doesn't apply until Feb 24th, so you have a few days to avoid it. All this expires July 24th, because the law being invoked here has a time limit unless Congress extends it.
[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/02/impo...
But unfortunately, there are other channels for them to effectively do the same thing, as discussed in oral arguments. So still not a major win for American manufacturers or consumers, I fear.
Actually they’re still doing it. I saw it not 2 minutes after seeing this post initially. The justifications for why they were “good, actually” has gotten increasingly vague though.
They've actually done so numerous times already and have several cases on the docket that look to be leaning against him as well. There's a reason why most serious pundits saw this ruling coming a mile away, because SCOTUS has proven to not be a puppet of the administration.
The president doing horribly fascist things with ICE like obliterating habeas corpus? Using the military to murder people in the ocean without trial? That's fine.
Screwing with the money? Not okay.
See also how the prez is allowed to screw with any congressional appointees except the federal reserve.
But I do think tariffs are an appropriate policy tool that should be used to protect US companies against overseas competitors that get government subsidies or other unfair advantages: Low wages, safety regulations, worker protection, environmental rules, etc.
Unless the money is fully accounted and restituted, I believe we can assume what the strategy is.
Tariffs in general have not been touched at all, those that Congress wishes to pass. This is a ruling that the President cannot use the 1970s act to be a one-person economic warfare machine to the entire world when he doesn't like something.
Yes, please! Maximally efficient is minimally robust.
We need robustness in the global economy more than some megajillionaire needs another half cent per customer in profit.
In addition, we need competition in a lot of areas where we have complete consolidation right now. The only way to get that is to give some protection to the little guys while they grow.
If their laws allow their leaders to enact tariffs then sure, they're welcome to do it. Foreign relations is complicated partially because countries operate differently. In the US, Congress is supposed to levy taxes and impose tariffs. Not the president. This game of nibbling (now chomping) at the edges of that clearly outlined role needs to end.
>When for example US tech is better than the local alternative but the countries create unfair advantages to the local alternatives?
We can still enact tariffs and similar policies. We have the same mechanisms they do. I don’t understand what is so “unfair.” Trump just seems to call everything he doesn’t like “unfair.”
That is not what Trump has been doing, though. Using tariffs as retaliatory measures? As a threat because he didn’t get to "own" Greenland?
Let’s stop comparing sane political strategies to the actions of a narcissistic madman.
The difference is they have to go through administrative procedure, and are subject to more judicial review to ensure administrative process was followed. Even if its a fig leaf in this administrative, its a tad slower with higher judicial oversight.
What Trump wants to do is impose tariffs on a whim using emergency powers where administrative procedure laws don't apply.
So the hope here: we have at least more predictability / stability in the tariff regime. But tariffs aren't going away
it's about if the executive can impose them
Tariffs are the most expensive way to try to onshore manufacturing. The cost per "job created" is astronomical usually. They incentivize corruption and black markets.
Even regular old subsidies are usually easier, cheaper, and less problematic
Trump's usage of tariffs is pretty damn dumb.
When the US President commits crimes as the US President, he has absolute immunity from prosecution (otherwise, he might not be emboldened to break the law) so there is no judicial recourse, but the US Congress can still see the illegal activity and impeach and remove him from office to stop the execution of illegal activity. As our representatives within the US Government, they are responsible to us to enact our legislative outcomes. It appears they have determined that the illegal activity is what we wanted, or there would be articles of impeachment for these illegal acts.
The legislative branch can of course deliberately impose tariffs at any time for the reasons you listed.
Full stop. It really is only about whether or not the president could do it.
That's all.
It's a 6-3 decision. Not close.
Here's the actual decision:
The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in case No. 25–250 is affirmed. The judgment of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in case No. 24–1287 is vacated, and the case is remanded with instructions to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction.
So what does that mean in terms of action?
It means this decision [1] is now live. The vacated decision was a stay, and that's now dead.
So the live decision is now: We affirm the CIT’s holding that the Trafficking and Reciprocal Tariffs imposed by the Challenged Executive Orders exceed the authority delegated to the President by IEEPA’s text. We also affirm the CIT’s grant of declaratory relief that the orders are “invalid as contrary to law.”
"CIT" is the Court of International Trade. Their judgement [2], which was unanimous, is now live. It reads:
"The court holds for the foregoing reasons that IEEPA does not authorize any of the Worldwide, Retaliatory, or Trafficking Tariff Orders. The Worldwide and Retaliatory Tariff Orders exceed any authority granted to the President by IEEPA to regulate importation by means of tariffs. The Trafficking Tariffs fail because they do not deal with the threats set forth in those orders. This conclusion entitles Plaintiffs to judgment as a matter of law; as the court further finds no genuine dispute as to any material fact, summary judgment will enter against the United States. See USCIT R. 56. The challenged Tariff Orders will be vacated and their operation permanently enjoined."
So that last line is the current state: "The challenged Tariff Orders will be vacated and their operation permanently enjoined." Immediately, it appears.
A useful question for companies owed a refund is whether they can use their credit against the United States for other debts to the United States, including taxes.
[1] https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-orders/25-1812.OPINIO...
[2] https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cit.170...
Zing! Surprisingly spicy writing for such a gravely serious body.
Yes, legislating can be hard and take time. 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. ... But if history is any guide, the tables will turn and the day will come when those disappointed by today’s result will appreciate the legislative process for the bulwark of liberty it is.
When I came to the opinion from Jackson, J., I found it extremely compelling. He says this:
... But some of TWEA’s sections delegating this authority had lapsed, and “there [was] doubt as to the effectiveness of other sections.” Accordingly, Congress amended TWEA in 1941, adding the subsection that includes the “regulate ... importation” language on which the President relies today. The Reports explained Congress’s primary purpose for the 1941 amendment: shoring up the President’s ability to control foreign-owned property by maintaining and strengthening the “existing system of foreign property control (commonly known as freezing control).”
When Congress enacted IEEPA in 1977, limiting the circumstances under which the President could exercise his emergency authorities, it kept the “regulate ... importation” language from TWEA. The other two relevant pieces of legislative history—the Senate and House Reports that accompanied IEEPA—demonstrate that Congress’s intent regarding the scope of this statutory language remained the same. As the Senate Report explained, Congress’s sole objective for the “regulate ... importation” subsection was to grant the President the emergency authority “to control or freeze property transactions where a foreign interest is involved.” The House Report likewise described IEEPA as empowering the President to “regulate or freeze any property in which any foreign country or a national thereof has any interest.”
However, then I read Kavanaugh, J. who writes the following:
In 1971, President Nixon imposed 10 percent tariffs on almost all foreign imports. He levied the tariffs under IEEPA’s predecessor statute, the Trading with the Enemy Act (TWEA), which similarly authorized the President to “regulate ... importation.” The Nixon tariffs were upheld in court.
When IEEPA was enacted in 1977 in the wake of the Nixon and Ford tariffs and the Algonquin decision, Congress and the public plainly would have understood that the power to “regulate ... importation” included tariffs. If Congress wanted to exclude tariffs from IEEPA, it surely would not have enacted the same broad “regulate ... importation” language that had just been used to justify major American tariffs on foreign imports.
And I also find this compelling.
To add onto this, Roberts, C. J. says: IEEPA’s grant of authority to “regulate ... importation” falls short. IEEPA contains no reference to tariffs or duties. The Government points to no statute in which Congress used the word “regulate” to authorize taxation. And until now no President has read IEEPA to confer such power.
This seems directly contradictory to Kavanaugh, J.'s dissent! Kavanaugh, J. claims that Nixon used the word “regulate” to impose tarrifs. And apparently the word isn't just in some random other statute — Nixon did so from TWEA, the predecessor of IEEPA: when Congress enacted IEEPA in 1977 it kept the “regulate ... importation” language from TWEA. (from Jackson, J.) So the point that no President has read IEEPA to confer such power seems pretty weak, when Nixon apparently did so from TWEA.
I have no conclusion from this, but IMO both Jackson, J. and Kavanaugh, J. have pretty strong points in opposing directions.
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/trump-orders-temporary-1...
Additionally, the law in this case isn’t ill defined whatsoever. Alito, Thomas, and to a lesser extent Kavanaugh are just partisan hacks. For many years I wanted to believe they had a consistent and defensible legal viewpoint, even if I thought it was misguided. However the past six years have destroyed that notion. They’re barely even trying to justify themselves in most of these rulings; and via the shadow docket frequently deny us even that barest explanation.
Watching from across the Atlantic, I was always fascinated by Scalia's opinions (especially his dissents). I usually vehemently disagreed with him on principle (and I do believe his opinions were principled), but I often found myself conceding to his points, from a "what is and what should be are different things" angle.
Curious if others have different readings.
If any justice deserves to be impeached it’s him. I can’t believe they approved him in the first place. Anita Hill sends her regards.
The fact that the administration of tariffs is so much better defined than really anything else shouldn’t be surprising because tariffs is the proximate cause of the Revolutionary war.
It’s embarrassing that the 3 justices put their partisanship ahead of the clear language of the constitution and explicitly stated intentions of the founders.
[0] Unless that's power over the money (ie Federal Reserve) because that's a special and unique institution. (ie: they know giving the president the power over the money printer would be disastrous and they want to be racist and rich not racist and poor.)
from the start of the "injury":
- 8 days to get to the supreme court
- 2 days arguing in court
- 5 days for the court to reach a decision
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_(Miller)_v_The_Prime_Ministe...
That is not how the Supreme Court works. SCOTUS is a political body. Justices do one thing: cast votes. For any reason.
If they write an opinion it is merely their post hoc justification for their vote. Otherwise they do not have to explain anything. And when they do write an opinion it does not necessarily reflect the real reason for the way they voted.
Edit: Not sure why anyone is downvoting this comment. I was a trial attorney for 40+ years. If you believe what I posted is legally inaccurate, then provide a comment. But downvoting without explaining is ... just ... I don't know ... cowardly?
'can the President unilaterally impose tariffs on any country he wants anytime he wants'
No, he can't impost tariffs on any country. He can only impose tariffs on American companies willing to import from any country.
> The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises
(which it does, and expounds upon)
Make stupid laws, win stupid prizes.
It's almost like the legal system is designed so that you can get away with murder if you can afford enough lawyers.
https://www.finance.senate.gov/ranking-members-news/wyden-wa...
- https://www.newsweek.com/trump-doj-handling-pam-bondi-brothe...
- https://abcnews.com/US/doj-drops-charges-client-ag-pam-bondi...
This is no excuse. If they knew this would be a business, being a broker of such deals would be sure to make them money.
not sure why you'd give them any benefit of the doubt. they haven't earned it.
Like his peanut farm would unduly sway government peanut policy.
There has most certainly been a major decline in values over time that corresponds quite strongly with the rise in the perceived importance of wealth.
There was a tremendous outpouring of grief and honor, and so much heartfelt condolences. From all over America and the whole world. Deep respect as fitting as can be for such a great human being, for the type of honest & compassionate leadership you could only get in the USA, and only from the cream that rises to the top.
Every single minute it invoked the feeling that Trump deserves nothing like this ever.
That's why it taxed the economy much worse than a legitimate President would do.
Why would they bother hiding it when the populace is apparently powerless to do anything about it?
If that was me, I would have used my substantial wealth to have lunch literally anywhere else in the world, with anyone else in the world.
For what it’s worth, I’ve personally been doing this. Not in meaningful dollar amounts. And largely to help regional businesses stay afloat. But I paid their tariffs and bought, in return, a limited power of attorney and claim to any refunds.
Seems more likely the administration orders everyone to ignore the court.
Even if the executive branch's actions stop here, there's still a lot of arguing in court to do over refunds.
But I guess this is not very surprising. I am sure every friend and family member of Trump administration people made trades leading all those tariff announcements over the last year, while the rest of us got rocked by the chaos in the stock market.
“LUTNICK was a neighbor of JEFFREY EPSTEIN (EPSTEIN) in the adjoining property at 11 E 71st Street, New York, New York. LUTNICK bought the property for $10 through a trust. LES WEXNER (WEXNER) and EPSTEIN owned the building. LUTNICK bought it in a very roundabout way from EPSTEIN.”
Welcome to America.
This isn't even in the top 10 of corrupt activities our government officials undertaken in the past year.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/30/new-epstein-...
Trump just gave himself a $10 billion dollar slush fund from taxpayers. Who stopped him? No one. This amount of money will buy you one great den.
Noem wants luxury jets from the taxpayer.
So. Much. Winning.
Had the Democrats ran a half decent candidate, they could easily have won. But they're just not capable of doing that.
Like the man said, I'm definitely tired of all the winning. Emoluments clause be damned.
What a profitable time for the Lutnicks, who are of course already fabulously wealthy. Our system really does reward the best people.
That's more sadistic than I had guessed.
------ re: below due to throttling ----------
Lutnicks profit requires some 2nd order thinking. How Trump et al might profit off of import/export insider operations also requires some 2nd order thinking. My apologies for not spelling it out, although it should not take much imagination.
Always seems to be in the right place and the right time
For countries that negotiated special treatment, they'll be stuck with a (now worse) deal?
For other countries, they'll return to the previous deal (non-tariff)?
Like with refunds, this is a mess of Trump's own making, and now we get to figure it out.
At the same time, USD M2 supply increased an unusual 40% from Jan 2020 to Jan 2022. It only fell a little after. So prices that were inflated for that reason, I wouldn't have expected to fall back down.
I do feel like some local businesses just price according to costs but keep that ratched up if costs fall, like you said.
Anthropomorphizing markets as evil cartels is 100% just as bad as the efficient market fetishization you see in libertarian circles. Markets are what markets do, and what they do is compete trying to sell you junk.
The power to impose tariffs rests with the legislator, not the executive. Of course our congress is effectively useless - we can thank decades of Mitch McConnell's (and others) "not giving the other side anything" thinking for that.
The description of some of those emergencies is comedic: "Declared a bank holiday from March 6 through March 9, 1933, using the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917 as a legal basis."
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_emergencies_i...
This is something FDR did heavily in the 1930s to expand his own power and bully congress into passing the New Deal. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/purge-1938 He also used legally questionable executive orders like crazy.
...raise taxes
The state of exception is the true test of sovereignty, and powers that crave sovereignty therefore seek out states of exception. The PATRIOT act created new institutions and authorities like the TSA. Just a few years ago local health departments were making business-shuttering decisions that ruined life for a lot of people over the common cold. Ukrainian war funding provides the EU with opportunities for exports and new experiments in joint funding (Eurobonds). Emergencies and exceptions are how power grows, so everything can become an emergency if you look at it in the right way.
Actual event may not have occurred, but DHL flat fee is real.
You can't do that yourself? In my EU country if I get a package with tax and customs fee I can pay myself and not pay DHL.
Is it like the gas pump thing? Where you can't do it yourself.
If they refuse, sue them in small claims court.
I dunno if a class-action lawsuit is realistic or not in this case or how likely a court decision stating that all tariff revenue must be refunded.
Sorry, but tariffs on aluminum or steel that is only made in China or microchips or components. I think that’s a valid discussion to have. … you’re complaining about disposable cat toys that were likely made in a sweat shop where the workers were not making a livable wage and then putting in a container on a ship burning crude oil and pushed around the world so you can have some junk that was a couple dollars cheaper than a domestic option?
Not the same thing.
Furious about the defeat, Trump said he will impose a global 10% tariff as an alternative while pressing his trade policies by other means. The new tariffs would come under a law that restricts them to 150 days.
Don't you americans have some kind of mechanism for removing a president from office when the trust is no longer there? I remember hearing a lot about it during the Clinton era in the 90s.
1. The EU would face higher tariffs on their exports to the USA. Now mostly struck down
2. The EU would not retaliate with tariffs of its own. Not really a big deal since the only US export to the EU that's worth worrying about are digital services, and those aren't subject to tariffs anyways.
3. The EU promised to buy lots of LNG and make investments in the USA to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. This was a bald-faced lie on the part of the EU negotiators. Even if the EU wanted to actually do this, they have no power or mechanism to make member states and companies within those member states buy more LNG or make more investments in the USA. This was just an empty promise.
___
So if the tariffs are struck down, we're more or less back to where we started.
The amounts named were also, ah, suspiciously similar to the amount of LNG Europe would generally buy, and the amount that would be invested in the US as a matter of course. It was kind of "well, the thing that would ordinarily happen will happen".
Parliament froze it when Trump started threatening Greenland.
https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/02/supreme-court-strikes-dow...
I doubt Trump's seriously seeking a nuclear deal as he (in)famously withdrew from the deal established by the Obama administration [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_withdrawal_from_...
A nuclear Iran would lead to a nuclear KSA, Turkiye, UAE, Egypt, Qatar, etc and would make the Middle East more unstable.
We don't need to put boots on the ground though. The reason why we had boots in Afghanistan and Iraq which led to it's unpopularity was due to our moral commitment to nation-building in the 1990s-2000s (especially after Yugoslavia). Americans no longer feel that moral compulsion.
If Iran shatters like Libya, the problem is solved and KSA, UAE, Qatar, Turkiye, Azerbaijan, Pakistan, Russia, China, and India can fight over the carcass just like how ASEAN, China, Russia, and India are doing in now collapsed Myanmar (which had similar ambitions in the 2000s); how the Gulf, Med states, and Russia are meddling in Libya; and how the Gulf, Turkiye, Russia, China, and India are meddling in the Horn of Africa (Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia).
This is why North Korea prioritized nuclear weapons - in order to gain strategic autonomy from the US and China [0], especially because China has constantly offered to forcibly denuclearize North Korea as a token to SK and Japan for a China-SK-Japan FTA [1]
Edit: can't reply
> How many more years will it remain inevitable, do you think?
As long as Iranian leadership remain committed to building a nuclear program.
Thus Iran either completely hands off it's nuclear program to the US or the EU, or it shatters.
The former is not happening because the key veto players in Iran (the clerics, the Bonyads, the IRGC, the Army, and regime-aligned oligarchs) are profiting from sanctions and substituting US/EU relations with Russia and China, and have an incentive to have a nuclear weapon in order to solidify their perpetual control in the same manner that North Korea did.
That only leaves the latter. The same thing happened to Libya and Myanmar.
The only reason the Obama administration went with the JCPOA was because the EU, Russia, and China lobbied the Obama admin that they could prevent Iran from nuclearizing. China+Russia are now indifferent to Iranian nuclear ambitions due to ONG (China) and technology (Russia) dependencies, and the EU does not have the power projection capacity nor the economic linkages to stop Iran.
[0] - https://www.cfr.org/backgrounders/six-party-talks-north-kore...
[1] - https://english.kyodonews.net/articles/-/47844?device=smartp...
It seriously feels like a scheme to ensure cheap labor.
Tariffs are totally a reasonable tool for protecting national security interests or leveling the playing field for the American worker. Unfortunately none of that was done in a coherent or legible way.
With all the global fallout and nothing to show for it I'm really not sure I could have come up with a better way to sabotage the United States.
Trump administration officials had indicated that they developed contingency plans to attempt to reinstate levies in the event of this outcome. CNN reported that Trump called this ruling a “disgrace” and said he had a backup plan for tariffs.
And we know in practice that Trump TACOs out rather than pick real fights with established powers. Markets don't like it when regulatory agencies go rogue vs. the rule of law. They'll just shift gears to something else.
> After falsely claiming that the Democratic appointees “do not object to [the MQD’s] application in this case” (which, in point of fact, they do),
[1] https://www.stevevladeck.com/p/212-the-gorsuch-kagan-tariffs...
Constitutional changes are required for other countries to trust in the stability of the US in the future.
It's certainly an interesting situation that wasn't explicitly spelled out in the law. But as far as everything that's working, it's realistically all within the legal framework of the Constitution. There are procedures to remove an unfit President, sure; but there's no requirement baked into the Constitution that requires those parties to act upon those procedures.
In short, it's a whole lot of short-sightedness of the Constitution combined with willing participants across multiple branches of the government.
The problems unearthed and the damage being done will take decades to fix just our internal issues, and it's very likely we will never resolve our international problems.
I don't know what the future holds for the United States, but we are certainly going to be operating from a severe handicap for quite a while.
As far as I can tell the US system is designed for gridlock. Things like filibuster, lower house elections every two years, state elected upper body, electorate system are all designed to create girdlock.
While Americans as a whole are to blame for some of this they are working in a completely broken system. In tech we try not to blame a person when something goes wrong so we look at what process allowed this to happen. I think many of the US problems are explained by their underlying system which is basically a copy of the English one at the time of Independence with a monarch and a parliament. Unlike the English system though it barely evolved since then.
It was 49.8%, which is not quite a majority.
It's also worth noting that Kamala Harris received precisely 0 votes in the 2024 Democratic primaries.
[EDIT:] I see that the parent comment has now changed "majority" to "plurality."
If I could make one Constitutional amendment, it would be this: publicly finance all election campaigns, and make private contributions illegal bribery, punished by imprisonment of both the candidate and briber.
Theres plenty we can do. That's off the top if my head. I'm sure if smart people sat down to think about it there are lots of practical and clever ideas.
The majority didn't ask for this. 49% of voters did.
At the very least, we need a clarification on presidential immunity.
Slower democracy, sure, but fits advanced economies that need consistent small refactors and never full rewrites every 4 years.
But sometimes I think about the fact that you guys don't even have the metric system yet...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_New_Zealand_electoral_ref...
The only way this will change is if the rest of the world leaves America behind and the quality of life here becomes so bad that radical change becomes possible.
But you are right that Trump won the popular vote in 2024, so you can't blame that on the system. But a functioning democracy would have more constraints on him. Our legislative branch has been dead in the water for 20 years at this point.
If the majority of American voters elect snoopy the dog snoopy can do all of the things snoopy wants to do within the bounds of the law. Snoopy can use his bully pulpit to fight against dog restrictions in restaurants and grant pardons to previous offenders. Snoopy can ensure efficient spending of money on public water fountains accessible to canines... but if snoopy starts issuing open hand-outs to the red baron (snoopy in a moustache) that's when the other branches of government are supposed to step in - we aren't supposed to need to wait four years for the next election to stop open corruption (especially since corruption is really good at funding more corruption so there's a vicious cycle that can begin if you let it fester @see the recent FBI raid on GA election offices).
1. Ranked Pairs voting for national elections, including eliminating the electoral college. Break this two-party duopoly of bad-cop worse-cop.
2. Enshrining the concept of independent executive agencies, with scope created by Congress, with agency heads chosen by the same national elections. (repudiation of "Unitary Executive Theory", and a general partitioning of the executive power which is now being autocratically abused)
3. Repudiation of Citizens United and this whole nonsense that natural rights apply to government-created artificial legal entities (also goes to having a US equivalent of the GDPR to reign in the digital surveillance industry's parallel government)
4. State national guards are under sole exclusive authority of state governors while operating on American soil (repudiation of the so-called "Insurrection Act"). This could be done by Congress but at this point it needs to be in large print to avoid being sidestepped by illegal orders.
5. Drastically increase the number of senators. Maybe 6 or 8 from each state? We need to eliminate this dynamic where many states hate their specific moribund senators, yet keep voting them in to avoid losing the "experienced" person.
6. Recall elections by the People, for all executive offices, members of Congress, and Supreme Court justices. (I don't know the best way to square courts carrying out the "rule of law" rather than succumbing to "rule of the fickle mob", but right now we've got the worst of both worlds)
Importantly, prosecute every member of the Trump administration for their blatant respective crimes.
I agree with you that the Republican party has failed the country by allowing this to happen. But I think we can still do better.
More "big picture" ideas would be to fundamentally alter the House and Senate, and implement score/ranked voting to allow a multiparty system.
I don't know about trust but the constitution isn't what enabled this type of behavior, it's the legislature. They've been abdicating their duties to executive controlled bodies (FCC, FDA, FTC, EPA, etc.) and allowing the president to rule through executive action unchallenged. They could have stopped these tariffs on day one. SCOTUS isn't supposed to be reactionary, congress is.
The constitution has all the mechanisms in place to control the president, they just aren't being used by the legislature.
It's a tricky problem that has a number of proposed solutions. I'm not going to act like it's a silver bullet but I think open primaries in federal elections would go a _long_ way towards normalizing (in the scientific meaning) the legislature and allowing people who want to do the job, rather than grandstand, into the offices.
For sure. Question is what would be enough to regain trust? I don't really see it happening
States' Rights have been slaughtered by these false patriots.
Y'all have proven how worthless that piece of paper is.
It’s not impossible for the USA to get there one day.
Even if part of the tariffs are rolled back, we may see other ones remain. And I bet they will not make it easy for people to get their money back, and force them into courts. Not that it matters. If people get their money back, it will effectively increase the national debt which hurts citizens anyways.
And let’s not forget the long-term damage of hurting all of the relationships America had with other countries. If Trump wanted to use tariffs as a tool for emergency purposes, he should have just taken action against China and made a case around that (pointing to Taiwan, IP theft, cyber attacks, etc). Instead he implemented blanket tariffs on the whole world, including close allies like Canada.
In the end, my guess is China and India gained from this saga. And the Trump administration’s family and friends gained by trading ahead of every tariff announcement. Americans lost.
This is kind of a bizarre whataboutism to throw in there. The current administration (with the full support of Congressional majorities in both houses that have largely abdicated any pretense of having their own policy goals) has been flouting constitutional norms pretty much nonstop for a year now and literally ignoring court orders in a way that probably no administration has ever done before, and yet the playbook they're following for extrajudicial activity apparently is from the Democrats? Just because there's bad behavior on both sides doesn't mean that the magnitude of it is equal, and in terms of respect for the rule of law the behavior of the current administration really has no comparison.
What is the emergency with China?
Kavanaugh's dissent is particularly peculiar as he wrote 'refunding tariffs already collected could be a “mess” with “significant consequences for the U.S. Treasury.”'
So, the justification is that undoing an illegal act is going to be unwieldy for the govt, so presumably, as a corollary, the govt must be allowed to continue doing illegal acts. This honestly reads as a blanket support for Trump personally, than any reasoned legal argument.
In the end, the people who bought products that paid more won't get it back... and who will receive the difference is the middle-men who will just pocket the difference profiting from both ends.
The food industries were seeing record profits at the same time of massive inflation, they were maximizing prices to see how much they could grow their wealth, while trying to minimize costs, decreasing quality and just absolutely abhorrent behavior all around.
I'm all for capitalism, but I strongly feel that the limitations granted to corporations by govt should come as part of a social contract that has largely been ignored completely. We should curtail a lot of the limitations granted and actually hold executives responsible for their decisions. We should also establish that "shareholder value" is not the only focus that companies should have. A corporation is not a person, that a corporation exists is fine, that they've been shielded from responsibility altogether in that limited liability now means you can literally destroy towns and executives and boards face no consequences is deplorable.
Governments should be limited, by extension the shields govt grants to corporations should similarly be limited. When the US constitution was written most corporations were formed around civil projects, then disbanded. Most companies were sole proprietorships or small partnerships. I think we need to get closer back to these types of arrangements.
He further claimed that this ruling puts his tariffs on a more certain basis(?!) because now he'll use different statutes that have been solidly litigated already (... so why weren't you opting to use those in the first place, if it's truly better? You didn't need to wait on this ruling to do that!) and that the only effect this ruling will have is a brief drop to ~10% across-the-board tariffs while they do the paperwork to bump them back up again under these other statutes. He repeatedly characterized this is good news for his tariffs, while also complaining extensively about the court and insulting the justices in the majority.
By the neo-royalist [1]interpretation of the current administrations policies, many countries have either decided to pay for the royalty fee to get tariff exemption in a way aristocats in pre-Westphalian Europe dealed with each other. While other stuck with the idea that it's stil the country you do deal with, not royals/aristocats.
All those countries (like the Swiss giving Trump golden rolexes for appeasement) that bent their knee: are they now gonna roll it back or are they thinking that the US system is so compromised, current administration will just find another way to play the neo-royalist game, creating new policies similar to the tariff so that each side lose, and then carve out an exemption for "the buddies" of the administration (and if you don't pay the tithe, you shall lose)
[1] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-organi...
That said, I'm still a proponent of having the bulk of the federal budget based on tariffs and excise taxes. I don't like income and property taxes in general. I'd be less opposed to income taxes if there was truly a way to fairly leverage them, there simply isn't. VAT is at least more fair IMO. I also wouldn't mind a tax as part of leveraged asset loans (including cars/homes) with maybe a single exclusion for a primary residence and vehicle under a given price.
https://www.cato.org/commentary/trump-has-many-options-supre...
https://www.myplainview.com/news/politics/article/trump-has-...
A step in the right direction, but there's a lot of progress yet to be made if we want to restrain the executive.
Congress is already completely in Trump's pocket. By doing it through Congress, Trump loses most of his bribery and bullying opportunities.
No adults in the room to stop him.
The new 10% will be effect I've from tuesday and he expects all deals he made with several countries to just continue without protest.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/trump-imposes-10-tar...
Now let's wait for the retaliation of 'Team Orange Dictatorship'
All in all, this seems like a major major blow to Trump. I'm more impressed that United State's laws are capable of gate keeping the president like this and despite people like Dalio dooming it up, it makes me more confident in America ironically.
i don't
Or is this just another "trump did illegal thing but nothing will happen" kind of scenario?
A typical pattern is the appeals court (of which scotus is one) clarifies the legal issues and send the case back to the trial court to clean up and issue specific orders.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/02/cnbc-daily-open-trump-admini...
I think this issue is effectively dead at least until we see how the new majority shakes out in November.
and, i'll bet, just the first of many
Sure, if there is a huge tariff on something, the user might look for an alternative, causing lower sales and, therefore, damaging the source company and economy, but for many products there isn't really a US-available substitute.
Even if you're still making the same money per unit, tarriffs mean you sell fewer units. So many less that it's an existential threat to many businesses.
...Right?
But no. The court pretty much says the president decides what's an emergency, leading us to having 51 active emergencies [0], with one starting back in 1979 (in response to the Iran hostage crisis) and with Trump leading the pack with 11 of such declarations. Congress didn't say "the president can just decide and that's it", but that's what's happening because of the SC's deferential posture.
Deferring so much to the political sphere (which is the reason behind this posture) is leading to a much less stable and more "swing-y" country.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_emergencies_i...
They should’ve allowed an emergency injunction from the outset.
That wouldn't have given the opportunity for SCOTUS's financial backers to build up their profits first https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47089443
Right, and thus because the Constitution gives congress the authority to levy tariffs, and the administration was usurping that authority, they violated the Constitution.
He probably didn't say it either, its first appearance is in an 1860s book by Horace Greeley.
- why no one in America is being charged
- why the files were so heavily redacted in violation of congress
- why the redactions were tailored to protect the names of some powerful people and not victims
Trump started talking about aliens yesterday. If the tariffs and aliens can't get people distracted from the Epstein filed then we'll be bombing Iran in 2 weeks...
Always useful to have a grasp on reality.
They’re hands off so the president can clearly gather illegal taxes.
Then they change their mind. So what? The government gives the taxes back? Is that even possible?
Next step what? Trump does something else illegal and SCOTUS majority sits on their hands for a year or more?
SCOTUS majority’s deference to their guy has become absurd… the judicial branch is of no use…
The process takes time.
1. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/29/court-strikes-down-trump-rec...
2. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/29/trump-trade-tariffs-appeals-...
Illegally taxing billions from we the people? Should be addressed immediately.
And they have done that before….
If we lived in a functional society, one might expect that tarriffs could be refunded through the normal income tax refund process hinged upon supplying recipts of tarriffs paid. I do not expect this to happen in the USA.
- $TRUMP meme coin, down 87% from ATH
- $MELANIA meme coin, down 98% from ATH
- $WLFI, down 50% from ATH, with 4 Trump co-founders
The first two coins were actually hyped up so hard at launch that they drained liquidity from most of the crypto market because of people dumping everything to buy in
They exist as a way for money to be given to the Trump family in an legally obfuscated way. Most of that happens/happened right after launch.
The dissenters were Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh, with Kavanaugh authoring the principal dissent.[1][2][3]
Citations: [1] Supreme Court strikes down tariffs - SCOTUSblog https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/02/supreme-court-strikes-dow... [2] Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump (Tariffs) - SCOTUSblog https://www.scotusblog.com/cases/case-files/learning-resourc... [3] Northwestern experts on SCOTUS decision in tariff case https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2026/02/northwestern-e... [4] Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump: An Empirical Breakdown of the Court’s IEEPA Tariff Decision https://legalytics.substack.com/p/learning-resources-inc-v-t... [5] Live updates: Trump vows new tariffs after 'deeply disappointing' Supreme Court ruling https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/live-blog/-tr... [6] Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump | 607 U.S. - Justia Supreme Court https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/607/24-1287/ [7] [PDF] 24-1287 Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump (02/20/2026) - Foxnews https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2026/... [8] Why a Republican Supreme Court struck down Trump's tariffs - Vox https://www.vox.com/politics/479919/supreme-court-trump-tari... [9] Learning Resources v. Trump - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_Resources_v._Trump [10] The Supreme Court has struck down Trump administration's use of ... https://www.reddit.com/r/LawSchool/comments/1r9y4z8/the_supr... [11] Supreme Court Strikes Down Use of Emergency Powers for Trump's ... https://www.agweb.com/news/supreme-court-strikes-down-use-em... [12] Supreme Court strikes down Trump's tariffs - NPR https://www.npr.org/2026/02/20/nx-s1-5672383/supreme-court-t... [13] Supreme Court Invalidates Executive Tariffs Under IEEPA https://www.currentfederaltaxdevelopments.com/blog/2026/2/20... [14] Live updates: Trump pans tariffs ruling, warns he can impose ... https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5746060-live-upd... [15] Supreme Court strikes down most of Trump's tariffs in a major blow ... https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court...
> Given that the phrase “adjust the imports”—again, in a statutory provision that did not use specific words such as “tariff ” or “duty”—was unanimously held by this Court in 1976 to include tariffs, and given that President Nixon had similarly relied on his statutory authority to “regulate . . . importation” to impose 10 percent tariffs on virtually all imports from all countries, could a rational citizen or Member of Congress in 1977 have understood “regulate . . . importation” in IEEPA not to encompass tariffs? I think not. Any citizens or Members of Congress in 1977 who somehow thought that the “regulate . . . importation” language in IEEPA excluded tariffs would have had their heads in the sand.
The roll-call vote for HB7738 (IEEPA) was not recorded [2], so we seemly can't confirm today how any sitting members voted at the time. But there are two members of Congress remaining today who were present for the original vote: Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ed Markey (D-Mass). They clearly both agree with the Court, while having different opinions on the tariffs themselves.
Statement by Grassley [3]:
> I’m one of the only sitting members of Congress who was in office during IEEPA’s passage. Since then, I’ve made clear Congress needs to reassert its constitutional role over commerce, which is why I introduced prospective legislation that would give Congress a say when tariffs are levied in the future. ... I appreciate the work [President Trump] and his administration are doing to restore fair, reciprocal trade agreements. I urge the Trump administration to keep negotiating, while also working with Congress to secure longer-term enforcement measures.
Statement by Markey after previous decision in August [4]:
> Today’s ruling in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit makes it clear that President Trump’s chaotic tariff policy is illegal. ... Today’s ruling is an important step in ending the economic whiplash caused by Trump’s abusive tariff authority.
N=2 is scant evidence, but it seems like both sides of the aisle "had their head in the sand", or Justice Kavanaugh's historical interpretation is a bit off.
[1] p.127: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-1287_4gcj.pdf
[2] g. 22478: https://www.congress.gov/95/crecb/1977/07/12/GPO-CRECB-1977-...
[3] https://www.ketv.com/article/lawmakers-from-nebraska-iowa-re...
[4] https://www.sbc.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2025/8/ranking-m...
Economy does well? Take credit for shepherding the economy past a hostile court.
Remember, in his narcissistic mind, Trump can never fail he can only be failed.
Instead he's now insisting he'll restart the tariffs under some even more flimsy interpretation of executive power.
He’ll take credit for it too.
“This was the plan all along.”
It would fix most of my country economy that needs to pay food in USD
Allowing Trump to trash the US economy is one thing, but even a Republican congress may be a little unwilling to actively _do it themselves_. Trump won't last forever, and they need to get re-elected.
The man has a lot of cheques to write for the 175 billion he stole illegally from foreign countries.
He raised tariffs illegally by 10% for most countries immediately, which triggered a bunch of negative economic effects around the globe in those countries directly tied to the illegal raise of those tariffs by who represents the United States of America.
Damages have to be paid to those countries and their companies.
Because those costs occurred from an illegal action. We do agree that if you do something the highest court has deemed illegal, if it caused damages to any party as direct result of that illegal action, the entity who suffered those damages should be entitled to claim damages, right?
A lot of companies had to deal with the same problems.
You can’t really plan exporting into a country that raises different amounts of tariffs basically over night depending on how his majesty, the king of the free world has slept the night before.
Someone needs to plan with the new realities, workers need to put in more hours, external expertise needs to be hired, all costs have to be evaluated, partners in the US might no longer be able to clear their inventory, new business terms need to be negotiated.
Don’t get me started about the Logistics troubles, but all of the above are costs which wouldn’t occur if the president had gotten legal advise from the Supreme Court about his economic plans before he did something illegal. Right?
So do you follow the law?
If yes, your conclusion needs to be that the president needs to write a lot of Cheques and probably needs the autopen. Because it weren’t only us importers and customers suffering from the presidents illegal action.
American citizens and American importers are not foreigner countries.
Don’t propagate or fall for trumps repeated blatant LIE that foreign countries pay tariffs.
They are direct taxes on Americans and American importers, the exporter does not pay it.
Please learn a bit about the incidence of taxation: https://stantcheva.scholars.harvard.edu/sites/g/files/omnuum... The main models supporting your view is where consumer income is exogenous and all firm profits are redistributed to the representative consumer as a lump sum transfer: https://www.ief.es/docs/destacados/publicaciones/revistas/hp...
Please avoid simplistic beliefs and moral outrage for things as complex as trade policy. The people who say that the incidence of taxation falls heavily on sellers may just be better informed, particularly when listening to wall street earnings calls while simultaneously looking at the consumer price data.
You can be for tariffs all you want, I'm not here to argue their efficacy. But you absolutely cannot with any intellectual honesty still be on the fence about whether he abused his power given this ruling.
It is not "flip flopping policy" to break the bounds of your Constitutional power and be shut down by one of the branches meant to check you.
Perhaps this is an overdue wakeup call, and a freak out is in order regarding this reality but unconstitutional tariffs alone were never going to solve this problem.
If only you knew how bad things really are.
> I'm for the tarrifs
What makes you think they are good?
As hackers here are very intelligent but also very unwise, they find great enjoyment in double-think exercises and the resentment it gives them.
The idea that the EU is high-tariff, while popular on the internet, is simply not supported by the facts.
> being the devil when the US implements them, and being double-plus-good when the European Union implements them (or China or South America).
You can also flip the argument and say that it is "double-plus-good" when USD is reserve currency but is the devil when Euro, Yen, Yuan, Rubles, Rupee et all want to be reserve currency too. Why does US admin go bananas when the topic of a BRICS currency is brought up?
Developed countries have levers. Developing countries have levers too. That's how balance has been maintained all these years since the World order was established post-WW2. Now if US wants to undo this World order (which it itself help setup) and wants to behave like a developing country, then developing countries will encroach on areas US holds dear to it: USD as reserve currency, cross-border transactions through SWIFT, imposing sanctions etc. Remember that it is not US alone that holds all the cards. Everyone else has their own cards as well.
Where were they before Trump?