Blow to Trump, but U.S. Tariffs Rates Unlikely to Decline Broadly

Washington, D.C. — In response to today’s Supreme Court ruling on the consolidated cases challenging President Trump’s imposition of expansive tariffs using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), Lori Wallach, Director of the Rethink Trade program at the American Economic Liberties Project, said:

“A Supreme Court otherwise inclined to endlessly expand Trump’s authority just restricted his go-to tool, ruling that U.S. presidents do not have the power to unilaterally deploy tariffs and dole out punishment and favor to specific companies and economic sectors, friends and family, and entire countries.

Trump’s tariff malpractice and abuse of the IEEPA statute to impose expansive and ever-changing tariffs has led the court to deny all future presidents speedy emergency tariff authorities that, applied in a more strategic, targeted, and judicious manner, could be useful.

This decision is unlikely to alter U.S. tariff rates or policies much because there are other statutes that could provide broad authority for Trump to impose tariffs.

In the immediate term, Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 explicitly authorizes a president to impose tariffs up to 15% for up to 150 days on any and all countries related to “large and serious” balance of payments issues, which relates to the huge chronic U.S. trade deficit. Section 122 does not require investigations or impose other procedural limits. The most open-ended potential source of presidential tariff authority, Section 338 of the Trade Act of 1930, allows a president to proclaim tariffs of up to 50% with no time limit on any countries that the president determines discriminate against U.S. trade or commerce by action or regulation. The unbounded presidential tariff authority of Section 338 could trigger another round of court challenges, even if in contrast to IEEPA Section 338 explicitly authorizes tariffs. But like the IEEPA challenge that would take time to resolve.

With the loss of 88,000 American manufacturing jobs since Trump returned to office and the 2025 trade deficit remaining stubbornly high, to date the results of Trump’s often mistargeted, on-off tariffs are the opposite of his campaign promises. Trump’s tariff malpractice includes lowering tariffs on China, a country with mercantilist trade practices that fuel the U.S. trade deficit, while imposing 50% tariffs on Brazil, a nation with which the United States has a trade surplus, because the country held a Trump-allied former president accountable for a failed coup. Rather than prioritizing more balanced trade and the rebuilding of domestic manufacturing, the Trump administration is using tariffs to attack other nations anti-monopoly laws on behalf of Big Tech, with Commerce Secretary Lutnick even offering to cut U.S. steel tariffs that domestic manufacturers and unions support if the European Union eliminates Big Tech regulations.

 Read Rethink Trade’s analysis of the issues and stakes of this case. Rethink Trade supports the strategic use of tariffs to achieve various policy goals. However, as our analysis of the stakes in this case notes: “It was not an accident that the Founders granted sole control over the substance of trade policy to Congress. A trigger for the Revolutionary War and U.S. independence from England was the unilateral imposition of tariffs on the colonies by King George to raise funds for his European wars. The Boston Tea Party was our nation’s first trade war! Having tariff and trade policy not set by one person — the president — but rather by a group elected by geographically distinct blocs of Americans — Congress — reflects the enormous impact international commercial policy has on a nation and the power associated with setting it.”

See Rethink Trade’s analysis of manufacturing and trade outcomes under Trump here.

Rethink Trade is a program of the American Economic Liberties Project.

Learn more about Economic Liberties and Rethink Trade.