Article written by Avalon Stewart, Feb 24th 2026

A Tariffic Week

Trump and the Supreme Court on Tariffs

The infamous and surprisingly misunderstood word “Tariffs” has once again become the star of the show in headlines this past week, and there is a lot that needs to be explained to fully understand all that is going on. In a 6-3 opinion on Friday, the justices held that Trump's aggressive approach to tariffs on products entering the United States from across the world was not permitted under the 1977 IEEPA. The ruling invalidates many, but not all, of the tariffs that Trump imposed almost a year ago. 

The question that was presented to the Supreme Court was whether the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) authorizes the President to impose tariffs. But as put by Justice Kagan, “IEEPA gives the President significant authority over transactions involving foreign property, including the importation of goods. But in that generous delegation, one power is conspicuously missing. Nothing in IEEPA’s text, nor anything in its context, enables the President to unilaterally impose tariffs. And needless to say, without statutory authority, the President’s tariffs cannot stand.”

The court’s 6-3 decision has significant implications for the U.S. economy, consumers, and the president’s trade policy. The Trump administration had said that a loss at the Supreme Court could force the government to unwind trade deals with other countries and potentially pay hefty refunds to importers. The decision on Friday has left uncertain the extent to which those who paid tariffs might be able to obtain refunds, with Justice Kavanaugh warning that any refund process could be a substantial “mess.”

This all being said, after the court’s ruling, Trump immediately announced that he was relying on a different statute-the Trade Act of 1974-to impose a new, blanket 15% global levy on imports to the U.S. The president initially announced plans to impose a 10% duty on global imports, before saying that the rate would rise “to the fully allowed, and legally tested, 15% level”. Whether or not it’s a surprise to you, these new tariffs are illegal too. The never-used provision the White House is relying on, Section 122, says that the president shall impose tariffs or import restrictions, for up to 150 days, whenever “fundamental international payments problems require” restricting imports to deal with, among other things, “large and serious United States balance-of-payments deficits”. But if you actually read the statute correctly you’d see that it doesn’t line out a provision for “trade” imbalances, it is talking about “financial” imbalances; there is a whole other section that’s dedicated to trade imbalances. 

However, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker has demanded that President Donald Trump repay billions of dollars to the Illinois state residents. In an invoice Pritzker posted to social media, the governor demanded that each of Illinois’ 5.1 million households receive a check for $1,700 to repay them for the tariffs the Trump administration has collected since the levies went into effect. He stated, “On behalf of the people of Illinois, I demand a refund of $1,700 for every family in Illinois. There are 5,105,448 households in my state, bringing the total damages you owe to $8,679,261,600”. When affected parties challenge the new levies in the coming days, the courts should step in and put a halt to the levies. The president has replaced one set of illegal tariffs with another.