The Supreme Court will once again consider where executive powers end and congressional powers begin during arguments on Wednesday over President Donald Trump’s sweeping “Liberation Day” tariffs.
With the consolidated cases of Learning Resources v. Trump and Trump v. V.O.S. Selections, the president’s ability to levy tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act is under scrutiny. The Trump administration has suffered a trio of losses over the tariffs in lower courts but faces its biggest test on Wednesday before a court that has so far handed Trump several victories via the emergency docket.
Latest test of separation of powers for Supreme Court
The Supreme Court has reviewed multiple separation of powers cases in recent years, often curbing the authority of the branch it sees as having exerted too much power.
In 2023, the high court struck down then-President Joe Biden’s attempt to wipe away $400 billion in student loan debt, finding his actions exceeded his statutory authority and that waiving the debt required clear congressional authorization, which he did not have.
The most recent major cases where the Supreme Court limited powers came in 2024, when the justices ruled a president is entitled to immunity for official acts, and earlier this year, when the high court significantly reined in the power for federal courts to issue universal injunctions — blocking laws or policies for the entire country rather than just the parties in a case.
The tariffs will be Trump’s first major policy under scrutiny at the Supreme Court since he returned to the White House in January, with many legal experts expecting an uphill battle for the administration.
Whether Congress authorized some tariff power to the president at the center of case
The Justice Department, in its brief to the high court, laid out the negative effects striking down the tariffs would have on the president’s ability to conduct foreign affairs and trade negotiations with other countries, while also arguing that IEEPA’s power to regulate importation in emergencies includes a tariff power.
“President Trump’s IEEPA tariffs are plainly lawful. Congress has long granted the President broad authority to employ tariffs to address emergencies. IEEPA continues that tradition by expressly authorizing the President to ‘regulate … importation’ of foreign goods to address declared national emergencies,” the brief said.
Opponents of the president’s claims have pointed to the lack of the word “tariff” in the text of IEEPA, arguing that the absence alone should settle the dispute over whether the president has tariff power under that law.
“The biggest reason is that the statute doesn’t say tariffs. I know that the president’s argument is that the statute allows the president to regulate the importation, but it doesn’t say tariffs,” Oliver Dunford, a senior lawyer with the Pacific Legal Foundation, told the Washington Examiner.
“And there are loads of other statutes in the U.S. Code that do mention tariffs or duties. And so it seems unlikely that Congress would include the specific tariff power in all of those statutes, but not include it in IEEPA,” Dunford said.
The administration has continuously stressed the ramifications of striking down the tariffs, arguing in a reply brief to the high court that ruling the tariffs are unlawful would “effectively disarm” Trump in international trade talks, pointing to the trade deals Trump has brokered after announcing the “Liberation Day” tariffs in April.
“Plaintiffs would unwind trade arrangements worth trillions of dollars, as President Trump has leveraged the IEEPA tariffs into negotiated framework deals with major trading partners—including the European Union, the United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea, and now China—that address underlying causes of the declared emergencies,” the DOJ reply brief said.
“Disrupting those results, the President has stated, ‘would render America captive to the abuses that it has endured from far more aggressive countries,’ and would destroy the ‘unprecedented success’ that has made America ‘a strong, financially viable, and respected country again,’” the brief added.
Dunford, who led an amicus brief opposing the administration’s stance on IEEPA to the Supreme Court, said he believes there will be some justices who agree with that argument, but that ultimately the tariff power is explicitly Congress’s — not the president’s.
“It’s true that the president does have a little more leeway in foreign policy; he’s the executive, he’s the one who travels around on behalf of the government, but the tariff power and the regulation of foreign commerce are congressional powers vested by the Constitution in Congress. So it’s not accurate to say that the tariff power is a traditional foreign policy power of the president,” Dunford said. “If the Constitution didn’t vest the tariff power and the regulation of foreign commerce power in Congress, then the president would have a much better argument.”
“Because the Constitution does expressly vest tariff power and the foreign commerce power with Congress, then at the very least, the president would need some authorization from Congress to do what he’s doing,” he added.
TRUMP MAY FINALLY GET SOME LOSSES AS SUPREME COURT TURNS TO MERITS DOCKET
Arguments in the consolidated case will begin at the Supreme Court at 10 a.m., with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent saying earlier this week he will be in attendance for the oral arguments. Once arguments have concluded, the Supreme Court is expected to release its ruling in the tariffs case in the coming months.
The case will be the first of several expected tests of Trump’s authority before the justices throughout his remaining three years in the White House. Next month, the justices will hear a case over Trump’s bid to fire a Democrat-appointed FTC commissioner without cause, which will also be a key case for presidential power.