IEEPA: Why the Emergency Law Cannot Authorize Tariffs

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In 2025, President Donald Trump invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) for tariffs of 10 percent or more on goods from nearly every U.S. trading partner. No president had invoked IEEPA to impose tariffs before 2025.

The federal government argued that IEEPA’s power to regulate imports included the power to impose tariffs. Tariff challenger Learning Resources argued that regulating trade and taxing it were distinct powers. The Supreme Court has held that IEEPA does not authorize the president to impose tariffs.

For importers, the practical question is which law supports each charge, and how to recover IEEPA duties already paid.

What the 1977 emergency law permits

The International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) is a 1977 law that, during a declared national emergency, lets a president block or regulate transactions involving property in which a foreign country or foreign national has an interest.

Congress enacted IEEPA in 1977 to limit emergency economic powers previously delegated under the Trading with the Enemy Act. It is not a tariff law: it grants specific economic powers, not a general permission to impose any economic measure.

IEEPA requires a declared national emergency concerning an unusual and extraordinary threat to national security, foreign policy or the economy whose source is wholly or substantially outside the United States. Its powers may be used only to address the threat identified in that declaration, and a new threat requires a new declaration.

IEEPA authorizes actions such as blocking, regulating or prohibiting transactions by persons, or involving property, subject to U.S. jurisdiction. The Supreme Court emphasized that IEEPA’s list of powers contains no mention of tariffs or duties, and that the power to regulate importation does not fill that gap.

Why the tariff dispute turned on two different powers

On February 1, 2025, President Donald Trump invoked IEEPA to announce tariffs on imports from Canada, Mexico and China, declaring emergencies largely concerning illicit drugs. On April 2, 2025, Trump invoked IEEPA for tariffs of at least 10 percent on imports from almost all U.S. trading partners, with higher country-specific rates, citing lack of reciprocity and persistent annual goods trade deficits. The two sets of measures used different emergency explanations, but they relied on the same claimed tariff power. The legal question was whether the power to regulate imports includes the power to tax them.

In its Supreme Court brief, the federal government argued that regulating foreign trade had historically encompassed tariffs and that IEEPA’s import-regulation language carried that authority into declared emergencies. The government also argued that when Congress adopted IEEPA, it knew about the 1975 appellate decision upholding Richard Nixon’s 1971 tariff under the Trading with the Enemy Act.

The government said IEEPA sets sufficient boundaries on that authority even without numerical limits on a tariff’s rate or duration: the specified threat, statutory exceptions, emergency time limits and congressional oversight. The question remained whether the statute granted a tariff power for those boundaries to limit.

Learning Resources, Inc., a tariff challenger, argued in its response brief that taxing and regulating have distinct meanings: taxes produce government revenue, even when they also influence behavior. Learning Resources argued that Congress clearly delegates taxing power in other customs laws with defined limits, and that the president has no inherent taxing authority simply because foreign affairs are involved.

Learning Resources also disputed the government’s historical argument, contending that a single contested lower-court interpretation of the older law was not settled precedent Congress should be presumed to have adopted.

The V.O.S. Selections plaintiffs were five small businesses and twelve states; the Federal Circuit had ruled that IEEPA did not authorize the challenged tariffs. The Supreme Court said both challenges belonged exclusively in the Court of International Trade because they arose from tariff-schedule changes; that left the district court in Learning Resources without authority to hear its case.

The Supreme Court ruled on February 20, 2026, in two cases it had consolidated, and held that IEEPA does not authorize presidential tariffs. The court was divided: Justices Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh each filed a dissenting opinion. The court affirmed the judgment in Trump v. V.O.S. Selections, Inc., in which the government had asked it to review a decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. It vacated the judgment in Learning Resources v. Trump and sent that case back to be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. The jurisdictional dismissal of Learning Resources was not an approval of the challenged duties.

After a February 20, 2026, executive order titled “Ending Certain Tariff Actions,” U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) instructed that the covered IEEPA duties would no longer be collected on goods entered for consumption, or withdrawn from warehouse for consumption, on or after midnight eastern time on February 24, 2026.

Entry for consumption means importing goods for use in the United States and directly into U.S. commerce without time or use restrictions. A withdrawal for consumption brings goods out of a bonded warehouse upon payment of the duties due.

Emergency authority has exceptions and oversight

The exceptions and oversight the government cited as boundaries are written into the law: even in a declared emergency, IEEPA puts some transactions out of the president’s reach. IEEPA does not let the president regulate or prohibit, directly or indirectly, personal communications that involve no transfer of anything of value. It also protects imports and exports of information and informational materials, whether commercial or noncommercial and regardless of medium. That protection does not cover exports that are controlled under specified export-control provisions or that involve acts another federal statute prohibits.

Donations of food, clothing or medicine intended to relieve human suffering are protected, with exceptions. The protection does not apply when the president determines that the donations would seriously impair the emergency response, respond to coercion against the donor or recipient, or endanger U.S. armed forces engaged in hostilities or facing clearly imminent involvement in hostilities. Transactions ordinarily incident to travel are also excluded, including personal baggage, living expenses, personal goods and services, and arranging travel.

The president must consult Congress before exercising IEEPA authority whenever possible and consult regularly afterward. When using the authority, the president must immediately report to Congress the circumstances, the asserted foreign threat and the planned action. After the initial report, the president must report on actions and changed information at least once in every succeeding six-month period. These are oversight duties, not a requirement that Congress preapprove every individual transaction restriction.

A separate law, the National Emergencies Act, sets a time limit: an emergency ends on its anniversary unless the president publishes a continuation notice in the Federal Register and sends it to Congress during the preceding 90 days. Congress may end an emergency by enacting a joint resolution, and the president may end it by proclamation. Ending it does not affect actions or proceedings not finally concluded on the termination date, among other exceptions. The president may veto legislation, and an override requires a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate. A congressional vote opposing an emergency therefore is not necessarily the same as an enacted law ending it. Nor does renewing an emergency supply a tariff power that IEEPA does not grant.

Other tariff laws give different authority

Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution gives Congress the power to lay and collect duties and to regulate commerce with foreign nations. The Supreme Court noted that Congress has consistently granted tariff power expressly in other tariff statutes, so each of those laws has to be read on its own terms.

Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 requires the commerce secretary to advise the president when an investigation finds imports in quantities or circumstances that threaten to impair national security. The Commerce Department must submit its findings and recommendations within 270 days after the investigation begins. This is the Trade Expansion Act’s route to a tariff: action follows an investigated national-security finding, not an IEEPA emergency declaration.

After receiving a qualifying report, the president has 90 days to decide whether to concur and, if so, to determine the nature and duration of the import adjustment. An adjustment the president decides to make must be implemented within 15 days of that decision. Those deadlines govern decision and implementation, rather than setting a single maximum lifespan for every Section 232 tariff.

Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 permits the U.S. trade representative to impose duties or other import restrictions against unreasonable or discriminatory foreign practices that burden or restrict U.S. commerce when action is appropriate, subject to specific presidential direction.

Section 201 of the Trade Act permits safeguard tariffs or other action after the U.S. International Trade Commission finds that a surge in imports causes or threatens serious injury to a domestic industry. A Section 201 safeguard is meant to help the domestic industry adjust to import competition.

Section 122 of the Trade Act addresses fundamental international payments problems, including large and serious U.S. balance-of-payments deficits. It permits an import surcharge of no more than 15 percent for no more than 150 days unless Congress extends the period. Section 122 was first used to impose tariffs in 2026, more than 50 years after its enactment. On February 20, 2026, Trump proclaimed a temporary ten percent Section 122 surcharge on imports from all countries, subject to product and other exceptions. The proclamation set its collection period from February 24 through July 24, 2026, unless ended earlier or extended by an act of Congress. That stated collection period has passed; this historical surcharge is not a rate to assume for a new shipment. The balance of payments records transactions between U.S. residents and foreign residents in goods, services, income, assets and liabilities. It therefore measures a broader set of international transactions than the goods trade balance cited in the IEEPA emergency.

Presidents have imposed tariffs through several routes

Richard Nixon proclaimed a temporary 10 percent tariff in 1971 to address balance-of-payments problems; an appellate court upheld it under the Trading with the Enemy Act in 1975.

George W. Bush proclaimed steel duty increases and a tariff-rate quota on March 5, 2002, as a safeguard measure, invoking sections 203 and 604 of the Trade Act. Section 604 authorizes the president to write such changes into the tariff schedule. A tariff-rate quota allows a specified quantity of a product to enter at a reduced duty rate. Imports beyond that quantity do not receive the quota’s reduced rate.

Barack Obama imposed additional duties on certain passenger-vehicle and light-truck tires from China under sections 421 and 604 of the Trade Act, effective September 26, 2009. In that proclamation, Section 421 was used to address market disruption caused or threatened by tire imports from China.

Donald Trump’s first-term steel tariff imposed an additional 25 percent duty effective March 23, 2018, initially excluding Canada and Mexico. Trump invoked Section 232 national-security authority for that steel action.

Under President Joe Biden, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative finalized modifications to Section 301 tariffs on China on September 13, 2024, largely adopting the increases proposed that May.

These are examples, not a complete list of American tariff history or a schedule of rates still payable. The decision upholding Nixon’s tariff under the older law was part of the IEEPA debate, but the Supreme Court’s later holding is the one that governs IEEPA.

What the ruling means for an import bill or refund

Importers seeking refunds of IEEPA duties file requests with U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

CBP’s guidance on ending collection said that executive order affected IEEPA duties only and did not affect other duties, including Section 232 and Section 301 duties. The importer of record, the party identified in the entry transaction, is responsible for paying the duties and taxes due on that transaction.

CBP said it would provide further guidance through messages on its Cargo Systems Messaging Service (CSMS). A business planning an import may request a binding ruling on matters such as tariff classification, origin, preferential treatment and valuation. Check the legal authority and the shipment’s effective-date instructions before treating a historical percentage as the rate for a new entry.

CBP’s IEEPA refund guidance directs importers of record and authorized customs brokers to submit lists of entries through the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) Secure Data Portal using its Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries (CAPE) system. Each CAPE declaration may list up to 9,999 entries, and filers may submit multiple declarations. Refunds are an entry-based customs process, so an importer needs its import records rather than just proof that a tariff once existed.

Liquidation is CBP’s final assessment of duties on an import entry. A reconciliation entry supplies corrected information for elements an importer could only estimate when the original entry was filed.

CAPE Phase 1 covers certain unliquidated entries and certain entries liquidated within the preceding 80 days. Phase 2 accepts entries flagged for reconciliation only if the reconciliation entry has not been filed, and those entries must also be unliquidated or within 80 days of liquidation.

Outside the ordinary CAPE window, a refund is not automatic. CBP’s general protest procedure lets an importer, broker or attorney contest a CBP decision within 180 days after liquidation. That deadline describes challenges to CBP decisions, not a guarantee that a protest alone produces an IEEPA refund. In an October 6, 2026, court filing, CBP said it had deployed CAPE Phase 3 for finally liquidated entries belonging to plaintiffs for whom the court had ordered reliquidation. CBP notified counsel that plaintiffs who had submitted a valid importer-of-record number by July 30, 2026, could file Phase 3 declarations. Importers with older entries need to check their entry status, any protest deadline and whether a court order covers them with their broker or counsel.

CBP says valid IEEPA refunds generally issue within 60 to 90 days after acceptance of a CAPE declaration unless a compliance concern requires additional review. CBP makes an exception for certain entries, such as those that are extended, suspended or under review, and warehouse entries: they keep their liquidation status, and validated refunds are issued at liquidation. The general processing estimate is not a promise that every entry is eligible or that every refund will arrive on the same timetable.

CBP says it can refund IEEPA duties only to the importer of record or to a party the importer has designated on CBP Form 4811 to receive refunds, and only when the recipient’s U.S. bank account information is in its ACE portal account. It is not sending refunds directly to consumers who may have paid more because of an IEEPA duty.

For any import bill, the question to ask is which charge applies, under which law, on which entry.