On The Front Lines
Supreme Court Rules President Cannot Tax by Decree, Strikes Down Use of ‘Emergency’ Powers to Impose Billions in Stealth Tariff Taxes
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a major rebuke of presidential power, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6–3 that President Trump cannot impose billions of dollars in tariffs on the American people by declaring a national emergency. At stake was a key constitutional question: Who has the power to tax — Congress or the president?
In Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, consolidated with Trump v. V.O.S. Selections, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) does not authorize the president to unilaterally impose sweeping tariffs of “unlimited amount, duration, and scope.” The ruling rejects the administration’s attempt to treat tariffs as emergency executive tools rather than congressional taxes. Since taking office, the Trump administration has collected more than $200 billion in tariff revenue — costs borne largely by American businesses and consumers. Critics have described the sweeping tariffs on nearly every one of America’s trading partners as stealth taxes on the American people.
“The Founders did not fight a revolution to replace one king’s taxes with another’s,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People. “Whether it’s tariffs, surveillance, or martial law, the pattern is the same: emergency powers become a back door for executive rule. The Constitution does not allow taxation by executive fiat.”
Under Article I of the Constitution, the power to levy taxes and regulate commerce with foreign nations belongs to Congress—the branch closest and most accountable to the people. Having just overthrown a monarchy that imposed taxes by decree, the Framers deliberately vested the “power of the purse” in the legislative branch to ensure that no president could tax or spend the nation into submission without the consent of the people’s representatives. As James Madison wrote in The Federalist No. 58, “This power over the purse may, in fact, be regarded as the most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people.”
Beginning on the first day of his second term, President Trump issued a series of executive orders under declared national emergencies imposing sweeping “drug trafficking tariffs,” aimed at penalizing countries from which drugs allegedly flowed into the U.S., and “reciprocal tariffs,” aimed at addressing trade deficits. The administration relied on IEEPA, which authorizes the president to regulate certain foreign economic transactions to address “unusual and extraordinary” external threats.
The Supreme Court concluded that this statute does not extend to imposing tariffs — a core legislative function. During oral argument, Justice Gorsuch warned that the administration’s expansive reading of IEEPA risked creating a “one-way ratchet toward the gradual but continual accretion of power in the executive branch and away from the people’s elected representatives.”
In dissent from the majority’s 6-3 ruling, Justices Kavanaugh, Alito, and Thomas suggested alternative statutory mechanisms that might support future tariff actions. Trump has already threatened to pursue other avenues to reimpose tariffs without congressional approval.
The Supreme Court’s ruling in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump is available at www.rutherford.org.
The Rutherford Institute is a nonprofit civil liberties organization dedicated to making the government play by the rules of the Constitution. To this end, the Institute defends individuals whose constitutional rights have been threatened or violated and educates the public on a broad range of issues affecting their freedoms.
