The US high court will hear arguments on whether Trump’s erratic imposition of global tariffs is legally valid
Donald Trump thrives on emergencies. He cried havoc on the very first day of his second term, declaring a national emergency caused by an “invasion” of “illegal aliens” from Mexico. He has since invoked emergencies more than any president since the passage of the National Emergencies Act in 1976.
Next Wednesday, he faces another of his own making, as the US supreme court hears oral arguments on whether his globe-shaking signature economic policy – tariffs – is legally valid.
Trump sees emergency everywhere. From the flow of illegal drugs and precursors from Mexico, China and, somehow, Canada; the international criminal court’s investigation of US and Israeli officials; the US’s “insufficient energy production, transportation, refining, and generation”; the Brazilian government’s tussle with social platform X and its prosecution of former president Jair Bolsonaro; crime in Washington DC; and the US’s longstanding trade deficits.
The emergencies have served Trump to secure funding to build a border wall and give him the military responsibility for border enforcement, to allow oil drilling on federal land and keep unprofitable coal plants operating, to deploy the national guard in Washington DC. And, of course, to impose tariffs.
