A litigation boutique based in Oakland, California, representing plaintiffs and defendants in complex civil litigation.
U.S. Supreme Court Rules that the President Lacks Unfettered Emergency Power to Impose Tariffs
We are pleased with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision today in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) does not grant the President tariff power, agreeing with the 207 Members of Congress who signed onto our amicus brief.
The Supreme Court correctly recognized what our amicus brief argued from the outset: that the power to impose tariffs belongs to Congress, not the President, and that IEEPA simply does not authorize taxation of imports.
We were particularly gratified to see the Court’s reasoning align so closely with the arguments advanced in our brief. For example:
On IEEPA’s text: The words “tariff,” “duty,” and “excise” appear nowhere in IEEPA, and the power to “regulate” has never meant the power to tax.
On the Export Clause and the constitutional avoidance doctrine: Reading “regulate” to include tariffs would render IEEPA partly unconstitutional, since the statute covers both imports and exports—and the Constitution forbids export taxes.
On historical practice: The Court credited the fact that no President in IEEPA’s nearly 50-year history had ever invoked it to impose tariffs, consistent with our brief’s detailed account of how the statute has actually been used.
This decision puts tariff policy back where the Constitution places it—with Congress. It should also bring a welcome end to what has been a year of chaotic, on-again-off-again tariffs. If the President wishes to impose tariffs going forward, he must use one of the statutes Congress has enacted that expressly delegates that authority and follow the procedural requirements those statutes lay out. As for the tariffs already collected, we expect the next wave of litigation will focus on refunds.