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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2025/aug/31/trump-tariffs-prevail- supreme-court/

The Federal Circuit’s majority decision striking down President Trump’s emergency tariffs is a poster child of weaponized partisan injustice. The powerful dissent provides a clear road map for the Supreme Court to follow
when it takes up the issue in October. That road map affirms what should
be obvious: Mr. Trump acted squarely within his lawful authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

On the politics, six of the seven judges in the majority were appointed by Democratic presidents. Not a single Trump appointee sits on the Federal Circuit.

The states lined up against the tariffs form a solid blue bloc, each led
by a Democratic governor and a Democratic-dominated legislature.

The importer plaintiffs are small, import-dependent businesses reliant on Chinese and other foreign supply chains. Their lawsuits are being advanced
by legal nonprofits that have received significant funding from Koch-
aligned philanthropies and other conservative megadonors. Some of this
support has flowed through donor-advised funds, often described by
watchdogs as “dark money.” Koch-aligned groups have publicly opposed
tariffs for years.

On the law, this case boils down to three questions: Do fentanyl
trafficking and massive trade deficits constitute national emergencies? Is imposing tariffs a legitimate way to “regulate” imports? Are Mr. Trump’s tariffs, as the majority claims, “permanent” overreach under IEEPA?

At stake is whether the president of the United States retains the tools
to defend this nation, whether against the cartel-driven flood of fentanyl
from China or the chronic trade deficits that hollow out factories,
destroy jobs, weaken supply chains and leave America vulnerable to foreign coercion.

The national emergency test

For a president to act under IEEPA, there must be an “unusual and extraordinary” threat with its source outside the U.S., a formal emergency declared under the National Emergencies Act and measures used strictly to
deal with that threat. Mr. Trump’s orders met each test.

The majority tried to brush aside trade deficits as routine commerce.
However, the dissent exposed that error by pointing to the sharp surge in deficits arising from decades of nonreciprocal trade and the downstream consequences for jobs, agriculture, supply chains and national defense — precisely the sort of “unusual and extraordinary” threat the statute
covers.

The fentanyl trafficking tariffs likewise target a foreign-sourced crisis. Canada and Mexico quickly took corrective steps, prompting Mr. Trump to
pause enforcement. China refused to cooperate, and the duties went up.
This is how emergency powers are supposed to work: targeted leverage until
the threat is addressed.

Tariffs are regulatory tools

The majority’s next dodge is its claim that “regulate importation” in
IEEPA excludes tariffs. The dissent dismantles this. From the nation’s founding, duties have been a core form of regulation. Chief Justice John Marshall recognized in Gibbons v. Ogden that duties often and deliberately regulate commerce.

The Supreme Court has repeatedly confirmed this, upholding duties as a way
to “adjust imports” in Algonquin and endorsing tariffs and other economic measures as bargaining chips in Dames & Moore. If freezing foreign assets counts as regulation, so does the lesser power of imposing tariffs.

Congress confirmed the same in 1977. When enacting IEEPA, it copied
language from the Trading with the Enemy Act, which the courts had already confirmed included the power to tariff in Yoshida International. Congress
could have carved out tariffs. It did not. Instead, the House report
confirms that Congress knew it was preserving this authority while adding safeguards: Emergencies must be renewed annually, Congress must be
consulted, and reports must be filed every six months. Those checks
discipline the power; they do not erase it.

The majority’s claim that Congress silently stripped tariff authority from IEEPA is a legislative fantasy. Text, history and precedent all point the
same way: Tariffs regulate imports.

The permanence red herring

Finally, the majority calls the tariffs unlawful because they are
supposedly “permanent.” The dissent exposes this as false. By law, IEEPA
powers expire with the emergency, no more than one year, unless renewed. Congress can terminate them at any time, and presidents must consult with Congress and report every six months.

Far from being permanent, these tariffs end when the emergency ends, just
as President Nixon’s 1971 surcharge, upheld in Yoshida, lasted only until
he determined that the balance-of-payments crisis had passed. No one in
the Trump administration — Scott Bessent, Jamieson Greer, Howard Lutnick, myself or President Trump — has ever suggested otherwise.

Beyond the red herrings

The majority opinion tried to weaponize the “major questions doctrine,” insisting that Congress must use extraordinary clarity before delegating authority of this significance. The dissent shows why that claim
collapses.

The major question doctrine is meant for domestic regulatory cases where agencies stretch vague statutes to seize new power. It has never been used
to gut statutes in the core areas of foreign affairs and national
security, domains where Congress has historically delegated presidents the broadest discretion.

Nobody can seriously argue that Congress gave the president authority to
ban imports altogether but not the lesser power to impose tariffs. That
would be like authorizing the use of a hammer but forbidding a
screwdriver.

The majority’s fallback — that IEEPA is an unconstitutional delegation —
is equally hollow. The Supreme Court has consistently upheld tariff delegations. Like Section 232, IEEPA contains an intelligible principle requiring a foreign-sourced, extraordinary threat. That is more than
enough to satisfy the Constitution.

Emergency powers mean something

Emergency statutes exist precisely to let presidents act where ordinary
trade laws fall short. Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act limits temporary surcharges to 15% for 150 days. This is useful for minor balance-of-
payments issues but utterly inadequate for existential threats such as
China’s economic leverage, cartel-driven narcotics, or the severe erosion
of our manufacturing and defense industrial base.

Congress gave broader emergency latitude for a reason. As Justice Ketanji
Brown Jackson wrote in Youngstown, emergencies demand executive action. To
deny that power is to neuter the office at the very moment the
Constitution expects its vigor.

The minority dissent provides a road map to upholding the Trump tariffs,
and the Supreme Court should find it illuminating. Mr. Trump has warned,
“If allowed to stand, this [Majority] Decision would literally destroy the United States of America.”

We would do well to heed our president’s warning.


--
November 5, 2024 - Congratulations President Donald Trump. We look
forward to America being great again.

We live in a time where intelligent people are being silenced so that
stupid people won't be offended.

Every day is an IQ test. Some pass, some, not so much.

Thank you for cleaning up the disasters of the 2008-2017, 2020-2024 Obama
/ Biden / Harris fiascos, President Trump.

Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the
The World According To Garp. Obama sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood
queer liberal democrat donors.

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