The Supreme Court ruled Friday that President Trump cannot use emergency powers to impose sweeping tariffs on foreign imports — leaving the White House facing the prospect of paying back tens of billions of dollars to traders.

In a 6-3 vote, the justices found that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which Trump used to apply broad, across-the-board levies — including a 10% baseline rate and additional tariffs on America’s three biggest trading partners over the shipping of fentanyl to the US — does not authorize the imposition of duties. 

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, joined by conservative Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch, as well as liberal Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor.

In his opinion, Roberts noted that the “lengthy list of powers” articulated by the IEEPA does not include “any mention of tariffs or duties.”

“That omission is notable in light of the significant but specific powers Congress did go to the trouble of naming,” the chief justice went on. “It stands to reason that had Congress intended to convey the distinct and extraordinary power to impose tariffs, it would have done so expressly—as it consistently has in other tariff statutes.”

“Accordingly,” Roberts wrote, “the president must ‘point to clear congressional authorization’ to justify his extraordinary assertion of the power to impose tariffs. He cannot.”

The White House has pledged to use other legal avenues to impose tariffs, including Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 and Sections 201 and 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, if the high court did not rule his way.

The president has also floated the possibility of repackaging his IEEPA tariffs regime as licensing fees.

However, those methods are far more cumbersome and often restricted to certain types of imports or subject to expiration.

Among the levies affected by the ruling are the 10% baseline tariffs on all US trading partners that Trump announced on “Liberation Day” in April 2025. Also affected are duties of 10%, 25% and 35% on goods from China, Mexico and Canada, respectively, imposed in a bid to persuade those countries to crack down on fentanyl trafficking.

Tariffs of 25% imposed on nations that import oil from Venezuela, as well as an identical duty on India for importing petroleum from Russia, were also struck down — along with a 40% tariff on certain products from Brazil.

As of mid-December 2025, IEEPA tariffs had taken in $133 billion of the roughly $251 billion worth of tariff revenue collected in fiscal years 2025 and 2026, according to data from US Customs and Border Protection.

The opinion by Roberts made no mention of whether that money would have to be refunded, while conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh noted in his dissent that “[a]s was acknowledged at oral argument, the refund process is likely to be a ‘mess.'”

“In addition, according to the Government, the IEEPA tariffs have helped facilitate trade deals worth trillions of dollars—including with foreign nations from China to the United Kingdom to Japan, and more,” Kavanaugh continued. “The Court’s decision could generate uncertainty regarding those trade arrangements. In any event, the only issue before the Court today is one of law.”

Roberts was unmoved, writing: “There is no exception to the major questions doctrine [that significant programs, such as taxes, must be approved by Congress] for emergency statutes. Nor does the fact that tariffs implicate foreign affairs render the doctrine inapplicable.”

Last month, Trump had warned that a high court ruling striking down the tariffs would force the government to refund “many Hundreds of Billions of Dollars, and that doesn’t include the amount of ‘payback’ that Countries and companies would require for the investments they are making on building Plants, Factories and Equipment, for the purpose of being able to avoid the payment of Tariffs. When these investments are added, we are talking about Trillions of Dollars! … if the Supreme Court rules against the United States of America on this National Security bonanza, WE’RE SCREWED!”

Until Trump, no president had used IEEPA, which became law in 1977, to impose tariffs — though Richard Nixon did use its precursor law, the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, to impose an emergency 10% tariff on almost all imports in 1971.

During oral arguments this past November, a majority of the conservative-leaning Supreme Court seemed skeptical of Trump’s use of IEEPA, pummeling Solicitor General John Sauer with tough questions.
“Congress, as a practical matter, can’t get this power back once it’s handed it over to the president,” Gorsuch had contended at the time.

“It’s a one-way ratchet toward the gradual but continual accretion of power in the executive branch and away from the people’s elected representatives.”

Gorsuch returned to that theme in a lengthy concurrence Friday, writing: “A ruling for him here, the President acknowledges, would afford future Presidents the same latitude he asserts for himself. So another President might impose tariffs on gas-powered automobiles to respond to climate change. Or, really, on virtually any imports for any emergency any President might perceive. And all of these emergency declarations would be unreviewable.

“Just ask yourself: What President would willingly give up that kind of power?”