February 20, 2026

February 20th, 2026.

Today, in a six-to-three decision, the U.S. Supreme Court found that President Donald

Jay Trump's Liberation Day tariffs were unconstitutional.

Shortly after he took office, Trump declared that two things, the influx of illegal drugs

from Canada, Mexico, and China, and the country's large and persistent trade deficits, constituted

national emergencies.

Under these emergency declarations, he claimed the authority to raise tariffs under the

1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or AIPA.

The U.S. Constitution is clear that Congress and Congress alone has the authority to tax

the American people and tariffs or taxes.

But with the AIPA, Congress gave the President the power to respond quickly to an unusual and

extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States,

that originates in whole or substantial part outside the United States.

The law specifies that any authority granted to the President may only be exercised to

deal with an unusual and extraordinary threat, with respect to which a national emergency

has been declared for purposes of this chapter and may not be exercised for any other purpose.

Although the law does not mention tariffs, Trump claimed the authority under AIPA to impose

a sweeping new tariff system that upended the free trade principles that have underpinned

the economy of the United States and its allies and partners since World War II.

Trump promised his supporters that foreign countries would pay the tariffs.

But in fact, studies have reinforced what economists have always maintained.

The cost of tariffs falls on businesses and consumers in the U.S.

Similarly, Trump promised his tariffs would make the economy boom and bring back manufacturing

jobs, but the latest report on U.S. economic growth in the fourth quarter of last year

released just this morning shows that tariffs and the government shutdown slowed growth

to 1.4%, bringing overall growth down from 2.8% in 2024 to 2.2% in 2025.

While the U.S. added 1.46 million jobs in 2024, it added only 181,000 in 2025.

Trump also used tariffs to justify his extension of the 2017 tax cuts on the wealthy

incorporations, insisting that fees on foreign countries would fund the U.S. government

and cut the deficit. It was always clear, though, that Trump's reliance on tariffs was mostly

about seizing power. Trump's advisors appeared to be using the strategy of Nazi political theorist

Carl Schmitt, who opposed liberal democracy in which the state enables individuals to determine

their own fate. Instead, he argued that true democracy erases individual self-determination

by making the mass of people one with the state and exercising their will through state power.

That uniformity requires getting rid of opposition. Schmitt theorized that politics is simply

about dividing people into friends and enemies and using the power of the state to crush enemies.

Much of Schmitt's philosophy centered around the idea that in a nation that is based in a

constitution in the rule of law, power belongs to the man who can exploit emergencies that create

exceptions to the constitutional order, enabling him to exercise power without regard to the law.

Trump, who almost certainly is not Red Schmitt himself, asserted this view on August 26, 2025.

I have the right to do anything I want to do. I'm the president of the United States. If I think

our country is in danger and it is in danger in the cities, I can do it.

Trump should be able to get his agenda passed according to the normal constitutional order,

since the Republicans have control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Instead, he is operated under emergency powers. Since he took office 13 months ago,

Trump has declared at least nine national emergencies and one crime emergency in Washington, D.C.

Since 1981, presidents have declared on average about seven national emergencies per four-year term.

Having declared his power to do whatever he wished with tariffs, Trump used them for his own

ends in both foreign policy and economics, punishing countries for enforcing the law against his allies,

like Jair Bolsonaro and Brazil, jailed after trying to overthrow the elected government,

or strong arming countries like Vietnam into giving real estate deals to his family.

Trump changed tariff rates apparently on his own whim. As Chief Justice Roberts noted,

a month after imposing a 10% additional tariff on Chinese goods, he increased the rate to 20%.

A month later, he removed the legal exemption for Chinese goods under $800.

Less than a week after imposing reciprocal tariffs, he increased the rate on Chinese goods from 34%

to 84%. The very next day, he jacked them up to 125%.

That meant the total tariff rate on Chinese goods was 145%.

Trump's tariffs destabilized the global economy, while the wild instability made it impossible for

US companies to plan. Increasingly, other countries have simply cut the US out of their trade

deals while US growth has slowed. The tax foundation estimated that Trump's tariffs cost the

average American household about $1,000 in 2025. They projected that cost to be $1,300 in 2026.

Congress's Joint Economic Committee Minority, made up of Democrats, estimates that number to be low.

They say the actual cost has been $1,700 per household.

It was a huge tax increase on the American people, imposed without reference at all to Congress,

which is the only government body with the power to raise taxes.

Now, the Supreme Court has said that the chaos and cost of Trump's tariffs was for nothing.

Trump's claim of authority to levy tariffs under IEBA was unconstitutional all along.

Simon Rosenberg of the Hopian Chronicles wrote of the decision,

all this reinforces that the tariffs were arguably both the most reckless act and the greatest

abuse of power by a president in American history. He added, in most democracies,

Trump's reckless and wild abuse of power through his tariffs would cause the government to fall

or the leader to be removed. The imposition of these tariffs against the will of Congress,

the courts, our allies, and the American people. It's clear grounds for removal.

As Ryan Goodman of Just Security pointed out, the justices in the majority expressed deep skepticism

of claims to open-ended emergency powers, although it is not at all clear that they will recognize

the same problem in other contexts. Trump did not take news of the court's decision calmly.

Trump was at a private breakfast with governors at the White House when an aide handed him a note

about the decision. A source told Reuters White House reporter Jared Renshaw that Trump was

visibly frustrated and said he had to do something about the courts. Then he left the room.

Three hours later, Trump delivered a public response in which he lambasted the justices

in the majority, including two of the three on the court he nominated. He said the justices

appointed by Democrats are against anything that makes America strong, healthy, and great again.

They also are, uh, frankly, disgraced to our nation, those justices.

The Republicans in the majority are just being fools and lapdogs for the rhinos and the radical

left Democrats, and not that this should have anything at all to do with it. They're very

unpatriotic and disloyal to our Constitution. As a whole, he claimed, the court has been swayed

by foreign interests and a political movement that is far smaller than people would ever think.

He asserted that obnoxious, ignorant, and loud people were frightening the justices to keep

them from doing what was right. Trump heaped praise on his appointee Justice Brett Kavanaugh,

who joined Justice Samuel Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas in the minority.

Trump continued in this vein for 45 minutes, ranting that he had created a booming economy that

all of the Nobel Prize winners in economics had said was impossible. He returned to his fantasy

identity as a peacemaker, reiterating that he had settled eight wars, whether you like it or not,

saving 35 million lives, and claimed tariffs had made that possible. He claimed that he was very

modest in my ask of other countries and businesses, because he didn't want to sway the court.

He said, I want to be a good boy. He told reporters that there were other ways to impose tariffs

and that he intended to do so. Indeed, he said, the Supreme Court's decision today made a

president's ability to both regulate trade and impose tariffs more powerful and more crystal

clear rather than less. I don't think they meant that. I'm sure they didn't. It's terrible.

There will no longer be any doubt and the income coming in and the protection of our companies

and country will actually increase because of this decision. I don't think the court meant that,

but it's the way it is. Trump's tariffs are unpopular enough that he could have interpreted

the Supreme Court decision outlying them as providential, but instead he vowed to sign an order

imposing 10% global tariffs under a law that permits him to do so for 150 days.

When a reporter asked him why he couldn't just work with Congress to come up with a plan to

push tariffs, Trump answered, I don't have to. I have the right to do tariffs and I've always had

the right to do tariffs and it's all been approved by Congress so there's no reason to do it.

Tonight, Trump posted on social media that he had signed an order to impose a global 10%

tariff on all countries, which will be effective almost immediately. Economist Justin Wolffers asked,

what problem is Trump's new global 10% tariff meant to solve? If it's about leverage,

ask how much leverage do you get from a tariff that disappears in 150 days? If it's on shoring,

who builds new factories based on tariffs that disappear before the factory is built?

It's a tax. That's all it is. The court did not say anything about how the government

should remedy the economic dislocation the tariffs caused or, for that matter, return the

billions of dollars it took illegally. Simon Rosenberg wrote that Democrats can now credibly call

for the repeal of the Trump tax cuts and the clawing back of the additional ice funding as a way

of offsetting the revenue loss from the ending of the illegal tariffs. But Treasury Secretary

Scott Bessent told an interviewer, I got a feeling the American people won't see refunds.

Nonetheless, Representative Stephen Horstford, a Democrat of Nevada, and Janelle Bynum,

a Democrat of Oregon, immediately introduced a bill to require the Trump administration

to refund tariff revenue to US businesses within 90 days.

This afternoon, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker sent an invoice to Trump, charging him $8,679,261,600

or $1,700 for every family in Illinois as reimbursement owed to the Illinois families for

illegally imposed tariffs. It said, Illinois families paid the price for illegal tariffs

at the grocery store, at the hardware store, and around the kitchen table.

Tariffs are taxes and working families were the ones who paid them.

Illinois families paid the bill, time for Trump to pass back.

In a cover letter, Pritzker said, your tariff taxes wreaked havoc on farmers,

enraged our allies, and sent grocery prices through the roof.

This morning, your hand-picked Supreme Court justices notified you that they are unconstitutional.

This letter and the attached invoice stand as an official notice that compensation is owed

to the people of Illinois, and if you do not comply, we will pursue further action.

Letters from an American was written and read by Heather Cox Richardson.

It was produced at SoundScape Productions,

Dad and Massachusetts, recorded with music composed by Michael Moss.