On Friday, the Supreme Court ruled that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act did not authorize President Donald Trump’s imposition of wide-ranging tariffs last year.
“The Framers gave ‘Congress alone’ the power to impose tariffs during peacetime,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote. “And the foreign affairs implications of tariffs do not make it any more likely that Congress would relinquish its tariff power through vague language, or without careful limits. Accordingly, the President must ‘point to clear congressional authorization’ to justify his extraordinary assertion of that power. He cannot.”
In response, Trump called the justices who ruled against him “politically correct” and said they had been “swayed by foreign interests and a political movement that is far smaller than people would ever think.” The president also imposed new global, 15 percent tariffs under a different legal authority than the one undermined by the Supreme Court ruling.
Alabama Senators Katie Britt and Tommy Tuberville both issued public statements on social media praising Trump’s tariffs and calling the Supreme Court’s decision a disappointment. Since Trump’s second inauguration, Tuberville has repeatedly praised tariffs as an economic tool and pushed for the administration to raise them in order to support specific domestic industries like cabinet manufacturing.
“What the media won’t tell you is that President Trump’s tariffs work, and that’s why even the Biden Administration left them in place,” Britt wrote. She also stated that she will “continue working with President Trump and his team to bring manufacturing back home.”
While Biden did maintain specific tariffs largely focused on Chinese products that were introduced during Trump’s first term, the set of tariffs the second Trump administration has imposed is unprecedented in recent history. Before Friday’s development, Penn Wharton Budget Model estimated that the effective tariff rate was 10.5 percent, compared to under 3 percent during Biden’s presidency.
The increased tariffs have also failed thus far to increase the number of Americans employed in manufacturing, which has fallen almost every month since Trump’s inauguration. Investment in manufacturing has likewise not seen a marked increase over the past year, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce issued a statement praising the Supreme Court’s ruling as “welcome news for businesses and consumers.”
Democratic Congresswoman Terri Sewell issued a press release on Friday praising the Supreme Court’s decision.
“Today, the Supreme Court affirmed what my Democratic colleagues and I have been arguing all along,” she wrote. “President Trump’s use of IEEPA (The International Emergency Economic Powers Act) to justify his global tariffs is illegal and unconstitutional.”
“The Constitution is clear. The power to regulate trade lies with Congress. As a member of the Trade Subcommittee on Ways and Means, I will continue to hold this president accountable, and I will never stop fighting to lower costs for Alabamians,” the release continued.
Democratic Senate candidate and former Senator Doug Jones also praised the Supreme Court’s ruling, writing that “the tariff decision gives Congress the perfect opportunity to quit being lapdogs and do their damn duty for a change!”
