Trump’s tariffs were justified on a series of claims about trade deficits, manufacturing revival, foreign countries paying the bill, and the mass economic benefits tariffs would supposedly generate. One by one, each of these claims has collided with empirical reality. The Court’s decision, therefore, does more than resolve a statutory dispute: it marks the collapse of a narrative about tariffs that had already unravelled under scrutiny.
The path to the Court’s ruling began in March 2025, when President Trump advanced a novel legal theory: that the United States faced an international “emergency” caused by its trade imbalance, defined as the country importing more goods and services than it exports. Trade deficits of this kind, however, have been the norm in the United States since the mid-1970s. What had long been treated as a feature of a globally integrated economy was suddenly reclassified as a national emergency.
On that basis, the administration argued that the IEEPA—originally designed to address foreign threats and sanctions—granted the president authority to “regulate” international commerce by taxing international trade. Tariffs, the argument went, were simply one tool of regulation. Starting with the so-called “Liberation Day” orders issued in April 2025, the administration then implemented sweeping tariffs. These orders were revised, expanded, and recalibrated over the following months, effectively rewriting large parts of the US tariff schedule through executive action.
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The “big three” producers in the US car industry—as well as foreign companies that operate plants inside the United States, such as Toyota and Mercedes—have all faced substantial hits. The total price tag for Trump’s tariffs in the automobile sector is currently estimated to be in the tens of billions of US dollars range. Many of these companies have faced higher costs on imported parts and raw materials, even though they were already producing their finished products in the United States.
Stepping back from the more legal issues, I would note that the Trump Administration can easily resolve the refund issue simply by giving up this legal fight and issuing refunds to all those forced to pay the illegal tariffs. That would not be hard to do. The government has a record of all the payments and who made them. Calculating interest also is not difficult. The government could just make electronic payments or send checks to all those entitled to them.
Ultimately, the government illegally seized billions of dollars and therefore must pay them back. If I unjustly and illegally take your property, I have a duty to give it back, and pay interest. The same principle applies when the federal government does it. You don’t have to be a legal theorist or a tariff expert to grasp this simple point.
The Editorial Board of the Washington Post is understandably fed up with the unserious Kristi Noem. A slice:
It’s embarrassing that Congress can’t agree on common sense reforms for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to end the partial government shutdown. It might be more embarrassing that the department’s boss doesn’t make much of an effort to act like a responsible steward of that funding.
Walter Olson writes that “we’re not out of the woods on the law firm revenge orders.”
Regardless of your assessment of the wisdom or wantonness of the recent U.S-Israeli bombing of Iran, you surely should have no laments that the evil Ayatollah Khamenei is now no more. Here’s a slice from Jeff Jacoby’s latest column:
Why were Iranians rejoicing? Because for nearly four decades, Khamenei made their lives a waking nightmare. He imprisoned women for showing their hair, hanged gay men in public squares, executed dissidents by the thousands, and ran Evin Prison — where rape and psychological torture were standard practice — as an instrument of state terror.
When 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died in custody in 2022 after being arrested for wearing her hijab improperly, and millions took to the streets in protest, he responded by killing more than 500 of them and imprisoning 22,000 more. When a fresh uprising erupted this past January, he massacred tens of thousands.
Arnold Kling makes the case that “banning social media for children and teens is a FOOL’s errand.”
