Name: Supreme Court rules Trump's tariffs illegal
Uploaded: 2026-02-20T17:08:34.000Z
Duration: 8 min 2 s
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This is one of the most significant cases that the justices have decided in recent years here, the Supreme Court ruling that President Trump's use, these emergency tariffs that he has implemented are illegal.

It's the most significant economic case to reach the high court in years.

Sweeping implications for the economy and, of course, for presidential power.

And at stake here are billions of dollars in revenue that have already been collected by the government.

Pamela Wolf, the other significance here is that this is the first time that the 6:3 conservative court has ruled against President Trump in one of these major cases that have gone before the court since he returned to power in January.

Now, we are still going through this case, but this is something we have been waiting for.

The court said that it would take up this case on an expedited basis.

So they're deciding, even though it's a significant case now, because, of course, this has enormous implications to.

So as we go through this opinion now with our team, another outstanding question is what now happens to all that revenue that had been collected?

This is something, it really wasn't clear from the arguments what they would say about that if they're going to lay out a plan.

But this is an enormous decision and a rare loss for President Trump before this conservative court.

This is, Paula, a major slap at the president of the United States, who has made a major effort over these many, many months to impose all of these tariffs.

And just to look at some of the background I have here, over these many months, the administration has collected $150 billion billion dollars in these tariffs.

Do they have to refund that money to the firms, to the people who paid for those tariffs?

That's one of the big questions that came up at arguments, and

it's something that we're looking through now in this opinion.

The top line is that these are illegal, that the president cannot rely on this 1977 emergency law to impose tariffs without authorization from Congress.

Because this question is really about the extent of presidential power.

And we know in both his terms in office, President Trump has really worked at the edges of what has largely been recognized as executive authority.

But in these arguments back in November, they went on for two and a half hours, it was clear that the justices were skeptical that President Trump could rely on this vague federal law to impose global tariffs.

Now, they did appear to likely be willing to decide that these were illegal.

But what is not clear we haven't gotten to this part of the opinion is what happens to all that revenue that has been collected by the government.

And President Trump has said himself that this is, you know, this is a massive decision for him.

So we're waiting for reaction, both from the Justice Department that argued this on his behalf and also from the White House.

But we're going to keep going through this, Wolf, to try to see if the justices laid out any plan for what happens to that revenue.

All right, Paula, standby, I know you're going to be reading all these opinions and everything.

I want to bring in our senior legal analyst, Ellie Hoenig right now.

Ellie, as I said, this is a huge setback for the president of the United States.

And this has been a traditionally conservative Supreme Court, but

they ruled that all of these tariffs that Trump has imposed over these many months are illegal.

And the bottom line is that the tariffs Donald Trump announced back in April on Liberation Day are gone.

They have been ruled illegal by this US Supreme Court.

An interesting array of justices here in the majority ruling that the tariffs are illegal is Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Gorsuch and Justice Amy Coney Barrett, three conservatives who teamed up with the three liberal justices, Sotomayor, Kagan, and

Jackson, to rule these tariffs unconstitutional.

The dissenters are Justices Thomas Alito and Kavanaugh.

And the basis for the ruling is Congress, not the president.

Congress typically holds the tariff power.

Now, Congress passed this law back in 1977 called the International Economic Emergencies Act.

And Donald Trump tried to use that law to say, well, I'm declaring an international economic emergency, therefore I'm imposing tariffs.

But the majority here said, no, that law does not authorize you to, to impose tariffs.

And no, there is not a valid international economic emergency here.

the end result is that Donald Trump's tariffs have been struck down by the U. S.

But really important point I want to make.

Donald Trump has said, various White House officials have said if he loses on this basis, he will try to re implement other tariffs through other laws, which he can try to do.

However, those other laws are much more restrictive.

They would not allow him to apply the, the type of sweeping, massive, across the globe tariffs that he tried to impose here, but

Look, Donald Trump said these tariffs are the single most important thing he has done in his presidency.

He said that, and now they've been struck down by the court.

The administration has made clear that if the court strikes this down that they'll look at other tariff authorities to use.

But bottom line here, Ali, how big of a mess does this ruling create?

Given the fact that the administration says it has already received $150 billion in revenue, largely paid for by American businesses?

So it's hard to think of a case that has broader implications politically and legally and economically than this one.

I know a lot of people are watching for this one.

This was a question as that came up during the oral argument.

Amy Coney Barrett in particular asked the lawyers, well, what do we do with the 100/plus billion dollars that have already been paid by American importers, by American manufacturers?

I know Paul is reading this very carefully, but that's a huge question.

Will there be some sort of mass refund program?

Will the court rule that the tariffs are dead from here on out, but there are no repayments?

We will let you know as soon as we get an answer to that one.

As you noted, Paula has been reading through the opinion.

I want to go back to Paula Reid because we know that three conservatives sided with the liberals on the court.

And you have a quote from one of those conservatives, right, Paula?

Well, this is Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the majority opinion where the court agreed 6 to 3 that President Trump's tariffs exceed his power under the law.

He wrote, quote, the president asserts the extraordinary power to unilaterally impose tariffs of unlimited amount, duration and scope.

In light of the breadth, history and constitutional context of that asserted authority, he must identify clear congressional authorization to exercise it.

And we knew that the chief justice would be a key vote after what we saw at arguments.

So we're going through it very carefully to try to understand what, if anything, the court said about what happens to all that revenue the government has already collected.

We are carefully going through this to see if they laid out a plan if this goes back to the lower courts.

That's what we're working to figure out right now.

Do the tariffs immediately go away as of right now, or does it take a few days or at least maybe a few weeks for them to be removed?

Well, they've been declared by the Supreme Court to be illegal.

So we're going through to see if they laid out some sort of plan.

But as of right now, people should not have to pay a tariff today or tomorrow, one would think.

But we're looking to see because the logistics of this are so complicated to see if the justices weighted into that or if all of that is going to be something that's now going to be tossed down to lower courts now that the justices have ruled on the larger constitutional question here, the separation sort of a powers and who has the authority to do this?

Because while this has enormous economic implications, really this was a question about the extent of executive power.