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- Public Opinion on Limiting Presidential Tariff Authority
- The Major Questions Doctrine’s Consistency Problem
- The Refund Question
- Defining “Clear Authorization” in Statutory Delegation
- Why the Three-Month Delay Matters
- Chief Justice Roberts and Institutional Legitimacy
- Economic Impact on Businesses and Households
- Four Possible Outcomes
- Implications for Presidential Emergency Powers
The federal government has collected $287 billion in customs duties in 2025 alone—a 192% increase over the previous year—while the Supreme Court deliberates whether the president can impose these tariffs without explicit congressional authorization. The justices heard oral arguments on November 5, 2025, and nearly three months later, still haven’t issued a decision.
A new Marquette Law School poll reveals that 63% of Americans—including 67% of Republicans—believe the justices should limit presidential tariff authority. Among Democrats, 92% favor limits; among Independents, 69% favor limits. This supermajority cuts across political lines, suggesting that when Americans think about unchecked executive power to tax imports, their constitutional intuitions favor limits.
The case, Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, will determine whether the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) grants the president authority to reshape international trade through executive order. It will also test whether the Roberts Court’s “major questions doctrine“—a legal principle requiring Congress to speak with unmistakable clarity when delegating decisions of “vast economic and political significance” to the executive branch—is a genuine constitutional principle or applied selectively based on policy preferences.
If the justices strike down the tariffs, the federal government may owe substantial refunds to importers who’ve been paying duties that turn out to be unlawful. If they uphold the tariffs, any future president could invoke the same statute to impose sweeping tariffs with minimal congressional oversight.
Public Opinion on Limiting Presidential Tariff Authority
The poll also captured a concerning finding: 57% of Americans say the justices are “going out of their way to avoid ruling against Trump.” A ruling in the administration’s favor after months of delay will be interpreted by a substantial portion of the public as institutional bias rather than legal reasoning. A ruling against the administration might prompt Trump supporters to see judicial activism.
Most tellingly: 82% of Americans believe “the president must obey a Supreme Court decision,” with only 17% saying the president can ignore a decision he disagrees with. A meaningful minority has come to doubt whether constitutional principles will be enforced.
The Major Questions Doctrine’s Consistency Problem
The major questions doctrine says that when Congress wants to delegate decisions of “vast economic and political significance” to the executive branch, Congress must speak with unmistakable clarity. The justices invoked this doctrine in West Virginia v. EPA (2022) to strike down an Obama-era Environmental Protection Agency rule that would have required coal power plants to reduce emissions by shifting electricity generation toward renewable sources. Chief Justice Roberts held that the Clean Air Act’s ambiguous language couldn’t support such a consequential delegation of power to regulate the national electricity grid.
IEEPA, by contrast, grants the president authority to “investigate, regulate or prohibit” imports of “property in which any foreign country or a national thereof has any interest” during an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to national security, foreign policy, or the economy. The statutory language in IEEPA is arguably more specific than the language in the Clean Air Act regarding what the executive can do during declared emergencies.
Yet lower courts struck down the tariffs under IEEPA while the justices let stand laws that gave broader power to agencies without being specific about what they could do in other contexts. This inconsistency raises questions about whether the major questions doctrine is applied uniformly.
Congress enacted IEEPA in 1977 explicitly to narrow and constrain the expansive powers that had been exercised under the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 (TWEA). The primary historical support for the government’s interpretation relies on how courts later interpreted TWEA, but if that precedent is less solid than assumed, the government’s case weakens significantly.
The Refund Question
Thousands of importers face an immediate problem: they’ve already paid these tariffs. If the justices declare the IEEPA tariffs unlawful, what happens to that money?
This creates a fiscal challenge for the federal government. The uncertainty itself carries economic cost. Importers have had to make operational decisions without knowing whether they’ll eventually recover the tariffs they’ve paid. Some have absorbed costs rather than raise prices, eroding profit margins. Others have raised prices, potentially reducing consumer demand. Still others have restructured supply chains to avoid tariff exposure, making sunk-cost investments in new sourcing arrangements that may turn out to be unnecessary.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce reported that 60% of small businesses have raised prices in response to tariffs, while 70% report paying higher costs for goods and services they purchase.
The administration has said it “will not oppose” recalculating what was owed and sending refunds if the justices hold IEEPA tariffs are unlawful. Processing refund claims for hundreds of thousands of importers across millions of separate tariff entries could extend the process over many months or years.
Defining “Clear Authorization” in Statutory Delegation
At the heart of the legal dispute lies a deceptively simple question: what statutory language constitutes sufficiently “clear authorization” for the president to exercise power of vast economic and political significance?
The government argues that the phrase “regulate . . . importation” in IEEPA is clear enough. The challengers argue that Congress must use explicit language like “tariff,” “duty,” or “impose”—and that the absence of such language, combined with Congress’s 1977 decision to narrow TWEA, demonstrates Congress didn’t intend to authorize presidential tariffs.
Congress has previously delegated tariff authority explicitly. A 1962 law that lets the president restrict imports for national security reasons grants the president authority to impose import restrictions when the Department of Commerce determines that imports “threaten to impair the national security.” A 1974 law lets the president temporarily raise tariffs up to 15% for up to 150 days when the president declares an emergency relating to trade imbalances. This statutory language uses specific numbers (15%), specific durations (150 days), and clear subject matter (balance-of-payments emergency).
Congress enacted Section 122 in 1974. Three years later, it enacted IEEPA, deliberately narrowing the expansive powers of TWEA. The legislative history reveals explicit concern about unchecked presidential emergency powers. The absence of any mention of tariff authority in what the law says or what Congress’s records show about its intent is telling precisely because Congress knew how to grant explicit tariff authority—it had done so in Section 122.
Why the Three-Month Delay Matters
Oral arguments occurred on November 5, 2025. Nearly three months later, no decision has been issued. For a case where billions of dollars of tariffs are being collected monthly and where lower courts have already ruled against the government, this timeline has become significant.
One interpretation: the justices are deeply divided and struggling to forge a majority opinion. Oral arguments revealed apparent skepticism from Chief Justice Roberts and several other justices. The delay suggests either that no clear majority has formed or that an author is laboring over the language and reasoning.
The most likely explanation is that the tariff case is genuinely complicated. It involves interaction between constitutional law (separation of powers), statutory interpretation (what does IEEPA authorize), administrative law (the major questions doctrine), and practical remedial questions (what happens to collected tariffs). Different justices may have different approaches to these overlapping questions.
When the justices determine a matter to be truly urgent, they can act quickly. They did so with the TikTok case, hearing arguments and issuing a decision within weeks. They expedited the Anderson v. Trump case regarding presidential immunity and the 14th Amendment. The fact that the tariff case hasn’t received similar expedited treatment suggests the justices don’t regard it as an emergency despite the enormous economic consequences.
Chief Justice Roberts and Institutional Legitimacy
Chief Justice Roberts has written extensively about the importance of being perceived as a neutral arbiter of law rather than a political institution. He witnessed the damage to the institution’s reputation from cases like Bush v. Gore, which many perceived as the justices picking winners and losers instead of following consistent rules.
A decision striking down the Trump administration’s tariff authority could be perceived by Trump supporters as the justices interfering with presidential prerogatives at a moment when the administration is using tariffs as a primary negotiating tool. Conversely, a decision upholding presidential authority could be perceived by critics as the justices deferring to the executive on a question of vast significance.
Yet Roberts’s approach in recent major questions cases suggests he’s willing to constrain executive power. He authored the opinions in both West Virginia v. EPA and Biden v. Nebraska, both of which struck down significant Obama and Biden administration actions. He hasn’t shown a pattern of deferring to presidents to protect institutional legitimacy.
What may be driving the delay is the difficulty in crafting an opinion that strikes down the tariffs in a way that’s narrow enough to preserve presidential flexibility in genuine emergencies while still establishing the limiting principle that unlimited delegation of taxing authority is unconstitutional. The justices could rule that IEEPA doesn’t authorize these specific tariffs while leaving open the possibility that Congress could amend IEEPA or that presidents could use it in different circumstances.
Economic Impact on Businesses and Households
An analysis by the Budget Lab at Yale found that tariffs announced in April 2025 alone would cost the typical American household about $2,100 in purchasing power, while all 2025 tariffs combined would cost households approximately $3,800.
The impact is regressive. Households in the bottom income decile lose 2.6 times as much (as a percentage of income) as households in the top decile. Food prices rose 2.8% due to tariffs. Apparel prices rose 17%, far exceeding average price increases.
These are real economic costs being incurred while the justices deliberate. The uncertainty extends to supply chain decisions. Some companies have invested in reshoring production to avoid tariffs, only to face the possibility that their investments were unnecessary if tariffs are struck down. Others have delayed hiring or capital investments pending the decision.
Small businesses have been particularly vocal. The “We Pay the Tariffs” coalition, an informal group of small and micro-business importers, filed a legal brief articulating the harms. Furniture companies, textile importers, seafood distributors, and hundreds of other small import-dependent businesses have seen their operating margins compressed and are facing hard choices between cutting jobs, raising prices, and hoping tariffs are eventually struck down and refunded.
Four Possible Outcomes
When the justices finally issue their decision—likely sometime in February or March 2026—several outcomes are possible, each with distinct implications.
Scenario One: Tariffs Struck Down The justices uphold the lower courts’ decision, striking down IEEPA tariffs. The federal government’s authority to collect these tariffs immediately terminates. Customs and Border Protection would begin processing refund claims from importers who paid tariffs the justices have declared unlawful. The administration would face pressure to use alternative tariff authorities—laws that let the president respond to unfair trade practices—but these come with procedural requirements and limitations that IEEPA circumvented. The major questions doctrine would be affirmed as a consistent limiting principle with real teeth.
Scenario Two: Narrow Upholding with Limitations The justices uphold the administration’s tariff authority but on narrow grounds. IEEPA might be held to authorize tariffs only subject to limitations—duration limits, percentage limitations, procedural requirements, or showing a real connection between the declared emergency and the tariffs imposed. The justices might hold that tariffs targeting fentanyl trafficking and illegal immigration are permissible when genuinely tied to those emergencies, but reciprocal tariffs addressing trade deficits are not. This would preserve presidential emergency power while constraining its use.
Scenario Three: Broad Upholding The justices uphold the administration, holding that IEEPA clearly authorizes tariffs. The lower courts’ decisions are reversed, the tariffs remain lawful, and substantial refunds that would otherwise be owed don’t materialize. Presidential authority over tariffs would be dramatically expanded—any future president could invoke IEEPA to impose similar tariffs. This would weaken the rule requiring Congress to be explicit about big delegations of power.
Scenario Four: Narrow Grounds Without Major Questions Ruling The justices decide without reaching the major questions question. They might hold that the National Emergencies Act requires presidents to establish a genuine nexus between the declared emergency and the tariffs imposed, and that trade deficits don’t constitute an “unusual and extraordinary threat” in the statutory sense. This would provide a limiting principle specific to the facts without establishing precedent about the major questions doctrine’s scope.
The timing and content of the decision will pressure Congress to either approve or limit these tariff powers. If the justices strike down tariffs, Congress faces pressure to either codify certain tariff authorities or accept reduced presidential flexibility. If they uphold tariffs, Congress faces pressure to enact IEEPA amendments clarifying and constraining the scope.
Implications for Presidential Emergency Powers
The forthcoming decision will determine not only the fate of hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs but also the trajectory of presidential emergency powers and whether the major questions doctrine works consistently across different cases as a constitutional limiting principle.
The Marquette poll showing 63% public support for constraining presidential authority provides context—the public intuition favors limits. The consistency question matters enormously for whether courts and the public see this rule as fair and principled. If the justices apply a demanding “clear authorization” standard to tariff authority but accept more ambiguous language in environmental and education contexts, the doctrine risks appearing selective. Conversely, if they apply consistent standards across policy domains, that consistency itself might vindicate the major questions doctrine as a genuine constitutional principle.
The remedial consequences—what happens to the substantial tariffs potentially owed—will shape the case’s real-world impact for thousands of businesses and millions of consumers. A decision striking down tariffs without addressing refunds could leave importers pursuing individual litigation for years. Clear language about refund obligations would provide certainty and closure.
When the justices finally rule, they will answer whether IEEPA authorizes these tariffs and broader questions about the presidency’s constitutional role in economic policy, the courts’ capacity to police executive power through doctrinal restraints, and whether democratic preferences about constitutional limits will influence judicial interpretation of ambiguous statutes.
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