The ‘legal court xperts’ seem to be saying that Trump has put the court’s judges in a bit of a pickle, which IS exactly what Trump & Co. want…
The Left leaning judges are sure to vote against the Trump Tariff moves….
The three Right leaners , Alito, Thomas and Gorsuch would allow Trump to do what ever he wants….
But Kavanaugh , Roberts, and Barrett could be deciders in this case….
Update….
A majority of Supreme Court justices on Wednesday asked skeptical questions about President Trump’s use of emergency powers to impose tariffs on imports from nearly every U.S. trading partner, casting doubt on a centerpiece of the administration’s second-term agenda.
The outcome of the case, which could be decided within weeks or months, has immense economic and political implications for U.S. businesses, consumers and the president’s trade policy.
Several members of the court’s conservative majority, including Justice Amy Coney Barrett and Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, joined the liberal justices in sharply questioning the Trump administration’s assertion that it has the power to unilaterally impose tariffs without Congressional approval.
Justice Barrett, who is seen as a key vote, questioned the scope of President Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which she described as “across the board.”
“Is it your contention that every country needed to be tariffed because of threats to the defense and industrial base?” she asked. “I mean, Spain? France? I mean, I could see it with some countries but explain to me why, as many countries needed to be subject to the reciprocal tariff policy, as are.”
Several justices also noted that Mr. Trump is the first president in nearly 50 years to claim the emergency statute allows the president to impose tariffs….
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Trump claims tariff power
Trump announced his sweeping, worldwide “Liberation Day” tariffs in April, hitting nearly every country in the world with a minimum 10 percent tariff and including rates reaching 50 percent on some nations. The president claimed the authority to impose the tariffs under IEEPA, which Congress passed to try to rein in broader powers granted by a predecessor statute.
IEEPA gives the president the right to “regulate … importation” of items from foreign countries during a presidentially declared national emergency. It’s fairly clear that in such an emergency the president has the power to put an embargo on foreign individuals or particular foreign countries.
The administration contends that broader power to regulate and prohibit imports implies the related power to impose import taxes better known as tariffs, but opponents of Trump’s move say Congress knew how to confer that power on the president if it wanted to do so.
“Nowhere does it say tariffs, taxes, duties,” noted Elizabeth Goitein, who studies emergency powers at New York University’s Brennan Center.
A federal appeals court ruled, 7-4, in August that Trump’s broad tariffs exceeded his authority under IEEPA. However, the Federal Circuit’s majority stopped short of saying the law could never be used to impose more targeted tariffs.
Watching the court’s center
Many experts consider Kavanaugh likely to lean toward blessing the tariffs, although his vote isn’t a sure thing. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch are thought by court watchers to be even more likely to uphold the tariffs. Assuming the three liberal justices vote against the administration, that leaves Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett in play, although under that scenario both Roberts and Barrett would have to join the liberals to assemble enough votes to strike down the tariffs.
“The center of the court is going to be especially interesting to watch,” Roman Martinez, a former law clerk to Kavanaugh and Roberts, said during a discussion at Georgetown Law.
“I think this case will probably split the conservatives,” said Cary Coglianese, a University of Pennsylvania law school professor who specializes in administrative law and regulatory processes.
Among the liberal justices, the Trump administration’s strongest prospect for support in the tariffs cases may be Obama appointee Elena Kagan. Like Kavanaugh, she saw presidential decision-making up close in White House jobs, although hers were under President Bill Clinton. That seemed to show deference to the president’s need for flexibility, although she joined the court’s liberal wing in dissent six months later when the court issued a final, 5-4 rulingupholding the travel ban.
‘The stakes in this case could not be higher’
Some court watchers say the conservative justices, including Trump’s three high court appointees, could be hesitant to rule against Trump on an issue so central to his policy agenda. Just as many saw politics at work in the Supreme Court’s 2012 decision to leave a key part of President Barack Obama’s signature health care law in place, the justices might decide not to provoke the political fury that would be unleashed by striking down the tariffs.
“This, along with ICE and immigration … is the paramount domestic policy initiative of this president,” said Donald Verrilli, who served as solicitor general under Obama. “One way of thinking about this is that the justices who are going to determine the outcome of this case feel like they need a really pretty strong case on the legal merits before they’re going to decide to cross swords with the president.”
The tariffs case also comes to the court amid an extraordinary winning streak for Trump and his policies. Since January, Trump has brought an unprecedented number of emergency appeals to the justices and has prevailed in more than 20 of them, freeing his hand to gut foreign aid, fire leaders of federal agencies, and strip hundreds of thousands of immigrants of deportation protections.
Trump and his administration have sought to keep that streak going by painting a potential defeat for his tariff policy as so cataclysmic that the justices would be ill-advised to take that risk.
Trump warned on the eve of the arguments that the case “is, literally, LIFE OR DEATH for our Country.”
Trump’s lawyers have also pushed the rhetorical envelope. The Trump administration’s formal plea to the high court to take up the tariff case turned heads in the legal community by including language so hyperbolic that it seemed designed to remind the justices of the intense retort they are certain to receive from Trump if they rule against him.
“The stakes in this case could not be higher,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote. “The President and his Cabinet officials have determined that the tariffs are promoting peace and unprecedented economic prosperity, and that the denial of tariff authority would expose our nation to trade retaliation without effective defenses and thrust America back to the brink of economic catastrophe.”….
Note…
The REAL messed up thing in this that the 9 judges will actually be setting American Economic AND Presidential Power in this case…
NOT Congress….
For those who like digging into the Supreme’s Method’s Of Operation?
No Executive Taxation Without Clear Legislative Authorization
The American Constitution, drafted at Philadelphia by Dickinson and other leading patriots, codified these basic precepts. Constitutionally, revenue measures must originate in the House of Representatives – a rule that mirrored and built on the British constitutional precept that all revenue measures had to originate in the House of Commons. Like the House of Commons, the House of Representatives was designed as a numerous body subject to frequent re-election – on this side of the Atlantic, every two years. And taxation and representation were expressly linked in a famous provision prescribing House apportionment (the so-called three-fifths clause).
Given that America’s Congress has broad taxation power and also broad power to regulate various matters including interstate and international commerce, Congress may indeed combine these powers in its legislation. Thus, Congress may regulate for revenue purposes and also raise revenue for regulatory purposes.
But the Trump tariff cases raise entirely different questions than whether Congress can regulate and tax broadly and interchangeably: May the executive, without clear congressional authorization, twist a statute (the International Emergency Economic Powers Act) that nowhere uses the magic words tax or revenue, into a gigantic revenue measure? May the executive in effect rewrite the entire tax code for an indefinite period in the absence of any clear legislative authorization?
And make no mistake, the Trump tariffs are in fact intentional revenue-raising measures borne by American consumers….
More…
I HAVE pointed out HERE REPEATILY that Trump’s tariff’s ARE in fact a import TAX to American Consumer’s….
The above piece jives with this Dog, who isn’t a lawyer , but KNOWS a bit of something after running this place since 2009 ….
The Supreme’s may do it’s usual thing by dancing from striking down the Tariff’s directly agaisnt Trump’s actions and settling on the denying Trump’s moves based on the Congress/Tax writing one…