Justices at the Supreme Court appeared deeply skeptical Wednesday about whether President Donald Trump has the authority to impose tariffs without congressional approval.
Arguments in Learning Resources Inc. v. Trump unfolded over more than two hours and got off to a rocky start for the administration as a nearly breathless Solicitor General John Sauer was peppered with questions from every justice about the tension between Trump’s sweeping claims of authority and the separation of powers that have guided the nation’s government since its inception.
Trump isn’t trying to impose a tax with tariffs; he’s trying to regulate trade, Sauer said. And, he added, tariffs aren’t taxes anyway.
An incredulous-sounding Chief Justice Roberts pointed out that it is Americans who pay for tariffs, however, and therefore they are a form of tax.
“The vehicle is imposition of taxes on Americans, and that has always been the core power of Congress,” he said. “So to have the president’s foreign affairs power trump that basic power for Congress seems to me to kind of at least neutralize between the two powers, the executive power and the legislative power.”
