Overview
- After last week’s arguments, conservative justices including John Roberts, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett pressed the administration on whether IEEPA, which does not mention tariffs or taxes, clearly grants tariff‑setting power.
- Two lower courts previously ruled that the IEEPA theory is unlawful, yet the broad “Liberation Day” duties remain in force pending the Supreme Court’s decision.
- Trump attacked the Court on Truth Social, defending the tariffs as a national‑security tool, touting revenue and a proposed $2,000-per-person dividend, and questioning why the U.S. cannot levy duties like other nations.
- Independent trackers report measurable price effects, with Harvard Pricing Lab estimating retail prices on imported goods more than 5% above pre‑tariff trends and Yale Budget Lab putting the effective tariff rate near 18%, lifting CPI by roughly 0.7 percentage points.
- If the tariffs fall, officials and litigants expect complex refund processing for more than $100 billion collected, new importer lawsuits have been filed to secure paybacks, and experts point to alternatives such as Sections 122, 201, 232, 301 and 338 for any future tariff moves.