Supreme Court Strikes Down Trump’s Global Tariffs
Wall Street Journal
Feb-20-2026
Ruling finds president exceeded his powers by imposing duties without clear authorization from Congress
President Trump’s global tariffs are illegal, the Supreme Court ruled Friday, in a stinging repudiation of a signature White House initiative.
The 6-3 decision, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, removes a tool of diplomatic pressure that Trump has aggressively wielded to remake U.S. trade deals and collect tens of billions of dollars from companies importing foreign goods. The ruling didn’t directly address whether the government will have to pay back the tariff revenue it has already collected.
t is the first time the high court has definitively struck down one of Trump’s second-term policies. In other areas, the court’s conservative majority has so far granted Trump broad latitude to deploy executive power in novel ways, but a majority of justices—three conservatives and three liberals—said he went too far in enacting his most sweeping tariffs without clear authorization from Congress.
Three conservative justices—Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh—dissented.
The case involved two categories of tariffs. Trump imposed one category on virtually every country in the world, ostensibly to repair trade deficits. He imposed the other set of tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China, saying those countries are responsible for the flow of illegal fentanyl into the U.S.
The court rejected Trump’s argument that a 1977 law, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, implicitly authorized both groups of tariffs.
“Had Congress intended to convey the distinct and extraordinary power to impose tariffs, it would have done so expressly,” Roberts wrote.
The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Stock indexes rose modestly after the decision, while trade- and tariff-exposed stocks gained. The dollar slipped and Treasury yields edged higher.
The decision rebuffed an extraordinary public pressure campaign that Trump had mounted against the court while it was weighing the case. The president claimed, for instance, that a decision against the tariffs would be “the biggest threat in history” to U.S. national security and “would literally destroy the United States of America.”
The ruling will likely prompt the White House to try to re-enact the tariffs using other legal justifications. The administration does have other laws it can rely on, but those laws have procedural constraints and may not allow tariffs as expansive as the ones the court struck down.
The president could also seek explicit authorization from Congress to reimpose the sweeping tariffs, though that route appears politically unlikely.
Other, smaller tariffs that Trump has enacted under different laws remain standing.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether the administration will have to issue refunds to companies that have been paying tariffs for months. The Supreme Court majority didn’t address that question, and it will likely be litigated in the lower courts.
Kavanaugh, in his dissent, said refunding tariffs already collected could be a “mess” with “significant consequences for the U.S. Treasury.”
Companies have already filed hundreds of protective lawsuits seeking to preserve their ability to claim refunds from the government for tariffs they have already paid, in the event the court struck down the levies.
The tariffs before the Supreme Court constituted a large majority of Trump’s duties. Over the next decade, the tariffs the president imposed through his claims of emergency powers were expected to raise about $1.5 trillion, according to the Tax Foundation, representing 70% of Trump’s second-term tariffs.
Trump imposed tariffs on Canada, China and Mexico in February of 2025 for not doing enough to prevent fentanyl and other illegal drugs from crossing the border into the U.S. Then in April, on a day he dubbed “Liberation Day,” Trump announced a general 10% tariff on imports from virtually all countries and steeper levies on those the administration deems to be bad actors in trade.
Trump declared overdose deaths from fentanyl and persistent annual trade deficits to be national emergencies that justified the new trade policy. Small businesses and Democratic-led states quickly challenged the tariffs, arguing in lawsuits that they amount to a tax on the American people which Trump has no authority to impose without congressional approval.
Until Trump, no president had invoked the emergency-powers law as a basis to impose tariffs. Three different lower courts ruled the tariffs unlawful, including a specialized federal appeals court of national jurisdiction that said the emergency-powers law didn’t authorize tariffs of the magnitude Trump imposed.
Across the three decisions, 15 judges weighed in on Trump’s actions, with 11 concluding the president exceeded his authority. The Supreme Court, too, signaled skepticism when it heard fast-track oral arguments in November.
The tariffs remained in place during the litigation. The Trump administration had urged the high court to resolve the matter quickly, saying the nation couldn’t afford to wait until the summer for a final decision.
Trump has boasted about the billions of dollars being raised by his tariffs, despite the government arguing in court that any revenue is only incidental. The tariffs are in place to regulate foreign commerce, Solicitor General John Sauer told the justices during the November proceedings.
Feb-20-2026
Ruling finds president exceeded his powers by imposing duties without clear authorization from Congress
President Trump’s global tariffs are illegal, the Supreme Court ruled Friday, in a stinging repudiation of a signature White House initiative.
The 6-3 decision, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, removes a tool of diplomatic pressure that Trump has aggressively wielded to remake U.S. trade deals and collect tens of billions of dollars from companies importing foreign goods. The ruling didn’t directly address whether the government will have to pay back the tariff revenue it has already collected.
t is the first time the high court has definitively struck down one of Trump’s second-term policies. In other areas, the court’s conservative majority has so far granted Trump broad latitude to deploy executive power in novel ways, but a majority of justices—three conservatives and three liberals—said he went too far in enacting his most sweeping tariffs without clear authorization from Congress.
Three conservative justices—Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh—dissented.
The case involved two categories of tariffs. Trump imposed one category on virtually every country in the world, ostensibly to repair trade deficits. He imposed the other set of tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China, saying those countries are responsible for the flow of illegal fentanyl into the U.S.
The court rejected Trump’s argument that a 1977 law, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, implicitly authorized both groups of tariffs.
“Had Congress intended to convey the distinct and extraordinary power to impose tariffs, it would have done so expressly,” Roberts wrote.
The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Stock indexes rose modestly after the decision, while trade- and tariff-exposed stocks gained. The dollar slipped and Treasury yields edged higher.
The decision rebuffed an extraordinary public pressure campaign that Trump had mounted against the court while it was weighing the case. The president claimed, for instance, that a decision against the tariffs would be “the biggest threat in history” to U.S. national security and “would literally destroy the United States of America.”
The ruling will likely prompt the White House to try to re-enact the tariffs using other legal justifications. The administration does have other laws it can rely on, but those laws have procedural constraints and may not allow tariffs as expansive as the ones the court struck down.
The president could also seek explicit authorization from Congress to reimpose the sweeping tariffs, though that route appears politically unlikely.
Other, smaller tariffs that Trump has enacted under different laws remain standing.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether the administration will have to issue refunds to companies that have been paying tariffs for months. The Supreme Court majority didn’t address that question, and it will likely be litigated in the lower courts.
Kavanaugh, in his dissent, said refunding tariffs already collected could be a “mess” with “significant consequences for the U.S. Treasury.”
Companies have already filed hundreds of protective lawsuits seeking to preserve their ability to claim refunds from the government for tariffs they have already paid, in the event the court struck down the levies.
The tariffs before the Supreme Court constituted a large majority of Trump’s duties. Over the next decade, the tariffs the president imposed through his claims of emergency powers were expected to raise about $1.5 trillion, according to the Tax Foundation, representing 70% of Trump’s second-term tariffs.
Trump imposed tariffs on Canada, China and Mexico in February of 2025 for not doing enough to prevent fentanyl and other illegal drugs from crossing the border into the U.S. Then in April, on a day he dubbed “Liberation Day,” Trump announced a general 10% tariff on imports from virtually all countries and steeper levies on those the administration deems to be bad actors in trade.
Trump declared overdose deaths from fentanyl and persistent annual trade deficits to be national emergencies that justified the new trade policy. Small businesses and Democratic-led states quickly challenged the tariffs, arguing in lawsuits that they amount to a tax on the American people which Trump has no authority to impose without congressional approval.
Until Trump, no president had invoked the emergency-powers law as a basis to impose tariffs. Three different lower courts ruled the tariffs unlawful, including a specialized federal appeals court of national jurisdiction that said the emergency-powers law didn’t authorize tariffs of the magnitude Trump imposed.
Across the three decisions, 15 judges weighed in on Trump’s actions, with 11 concluding the president exceeded his authority. The Supreme Court, too, signaled skepticism when it heard fast-track oral arguments in November.
The tariffs remained in place during the litigation. The Trump administration had urged the high court to resolve the matter quickly, saying the nation couldn’t afford to wait until the summer for a final decision.
Trump has boasted about the billions of dollars being raised by his tariffs, despite the government arguing in court that any revenue is only incidental. The tariffs are in place to regulate foreign commerce, Solicitor General John Sauer told the justices during the November proceedings.
