Can a president tax Americans without Congress? The Supreme Court just heard explosive arguments on Trump’s tariffs – with justices asking if a future president could declare a climate emergency to impose massive taxes. One justice called it a “one-way ratchet” where Congress would never get its constitutional power back. The stakes: trillions in trade and the future of American democracy.
Summarization assistance from Claude AI.
Supreme Court Hears Historic Arguments on Trump Tariffs: Can Presidents Tax Without Congress?
Executive Summary
In a landmark case that could fundamentally reshape presidential power and America’s trade policy, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on November 5, 2025, challenging President Trump’s sweeping tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). The core question: Can a president bypass Congress to impose what critics call “one of the largest tax increases in our lifetimes”? Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued that IEEPA grants the president broad emergency powers to “regulate importation,” which naturally includes tariffs—powers allegedly validated by President Nixon’s similar 1971 tariffs. But challengers led by attorney Neal Katyal countered that tariffs are taxes, and the Constitution gives taxing power exclusively to Congress. The justices pressed both sides with hypotheticals—could a future president declare a climate emergency and impose massive tariffs?—while grappling with whether upholding these tariffs would create a “one-way ratchet” where Congress could never reclaim its power. The case represents what Katyal called “Youngstown at its lowest ebb,” pitting presidential authority against constitutional separation of powers, with trillions of dollars in trade agreements and the structure of American democracy hanging in the balance.
Participants
- Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. – Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court
- Justice Clarence Thomas – Associate Justice
- Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. – Associate Justice
- Justice Sonia Sotomayor – Associate Justice
- Justice Elena Kagan – Associate Justice
- Justice Neil M. Gorsuch – Associate Justice
- Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh – Associate Justice
- Justice Amy Coney Barrett – Associate Justice
- Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson – Associate Justice
- General D. John Sauer – Solicitor General, U.S. Department of Justice (arguing for the federal government/President Trump)
- Neal K. Katyal, Esquire – Attorney representing private parties (Learning Resources, Inc., et al. and V.O.S. Selections, Inc., et al.)
- Benjamin Gutman – Solicitor General of Oregon, representing state parties
The Cases at Issue
The Court heard consolidated cases: Learning Resources, Inc., et al. v. Donald J. Trump, President of the United States, et al. (No. 24-1287) and Donald J. Trump, President of the United States, et al. v. V.O.S. Selections, Inc., et al. (No. 25-250). These cases challenge President Trump’s April 2 declaration of national emergencies based on trade deficits and the fentanyl crisis, which he used as justification for imposing broad tariffs under IEEPA.
The Government’s Case: Presidential Emergency Powers
Solicitor General Sauer’s Opening: America at the Brink
Solicitor General D. John Sauer began with dramatic framing: President Trump determined that “exploding trade deficits” have brought America “to the brink of an economic and national security catastrophe.” He emphasized that the traffic of fentanyl and other opioids has created a public health crisis “taking hundreds of thousands of American lives.” According to Sauer, President Trump declared these emergencies are “country-killing and not sustainable” and threaten “the bedrock of our national and economic security.”
Sauer highlighted the stakes: Due to these IEEPA tariffs, the president has “negotiated agreements worth trillions of dollars with major trading partners, including most recently China.” Unwinding these agreements, he warned, “would expose us to ruthless trade retaliation by far more aggressive countries and drive America from strength to failure, with ruinous economic and national security consequences.”
The Legal Framework: IEEPA and “Regulate Importation”
The government’s argument rests on interpreting IEEPA’s language authorizing the president to “regulate … importation” during declared emergencies. Sauer argued this phrase “plainly embraces tariffs, which are among the most traditional and direct methods of regulating importation.” He cited the Supreme Court’s decision in Dames & Moore v. Regan, which held that IEEPA’s “sweeping and unqualified language grants the President’s actions the strongest presumption of validity and the widest latitude of judicial interpretation.”
Sauer characterized tariffs as IEEPA’s “least blunt and most nimble tool,” arguing it would be absurd if they were “virtually the only tool that Congress did not grant the President to deal with foreign emergencies.” He noted that plaintiffs concede IEEPA authorizes quotas and other tariff equivalents, suggesting the power to impose tariffs should logically follow.
The Nixon Precedent
Justice Kavanaugh pressed Sauer extensively on the significance of President Nixon’s 1971 tariffs. Sauer explained that Nixon imposed “a 10 percent tariff kind of across the board to all our major trading partners” to address a balance-of-payments deficit. Nixon used the tariffs as leverage “to bring all the major industrial nations to the negotiating table,” which succeeded in negotiating the Smithsonian Agreement in about five months, after which he lifted the tariff.
Critically, Sauer noted that Nixon’s tariffs were upheld by the Court of Customs and Patent Appeals (CCPA), the Federal Circuit’s predecessor with exclusive jurisdiction over such questions. The case was defended under the Trading With the Enemy Act (TWEA), which contains the same “regulate importation” language that Congress later re-enacted in IEEPA in 1977.
Sauer argued this creates strong confirmation: “Two years before Congress re-enacted that language in IEEPA,” it had been “interpreted to carry with it the authority to impose tariffs.” Congress studied presidential emergency powers carefully before enacting IEEPA, he noted, being “deeply concerned about excessive or abusive exercise of that power.” Yet Congress kept the same language, which Sauer presented as an implicit endorsement of its tariff-imposing interpretation.
Why the Major Questions Doctrine Doesn’t Apply
Justice Thomas asked Sauer to explain why the Major Questions Doctrine—which requires clear congressional authorization for actions of “vast economic and political significance”—doesn’t apply here.
Sauer offered two main reasons. First, as a matter of “common-sense interpretation,” one would naturally expect Congress to confer major powers on the president to address major international crises and foreign-arising emergencies. He cited Justice Jackson’s concurrence in Youngstown, which discussed the constitutional system’s “never-ending tension” between robust executive emergency powers and checks and balances. The solution, Sauer argued, is Congress conferring “broad and necessary powers in advance” while subjecting them to “ongoing political oversight”—exactly what IEEPA does.
Second, the president has his own “inherent Article II authority” in the foreign affairs context, making it a “particularly poor fit” to apply the Major Questions Doctrine. When Congress delegates authority to an actor who already possesses constitutional powers in that realm, Sauer argued, courts should be less skeptical about the scope of delegation.
Sparring with Justice Sotomayor: The Meaning of “Regulate”
Justice Sotomayor engaged in one of the longest exchanges with Sauer, challenging the breadth of his interpretation. She questioned whether “regulate” naturally includes revenue-raising measures like tariffs, especially given that IEEPA lists specific powers like “transfer,” “export,” and “withdraw” alongside “regulate.”
Sauer responded by emphasizing the “historical pedigree” of the phrase “regulate importation,” citing cases from Gibbons v. Ogden through Justice Story’s treatise to modern cases like McGoldrick and Gulf Oil. He argued that “regulating imports” has historically and quintessentially included the power to impose tariffs at the border.
Justice Sotomayor pressed back: If Congress wanted to grant tariff power, why didn’t it say so explicitly? She noted that every other statute granting tariff authority uses clear, specific language. Sauer’s response was that the phrase “regulate importation” itself is clear—it’s a traditional term of art that encompasses tariffs, and requiring more explicit language would be demanding “magic words” that aren’t necessary when the meaning is already plain from context and history.
Exchange with Justice Jackson: Historical Context and Statutory Structure
Justice Jackson probed the government’s historical arguments, particularly regarding 19th-century examples of presidents imposing tariffs during wartime. She appeared skeptical that these precedents support peacetime tariff authority under IEEPA.
She also questioned whether the structure of IEEPA suggests limits on tariff authority. The statute allows the president to “regulate or prohibit” various transactions, but does that mean he can also impose revenue-raising measures? Sauer argued that regulation of imports naturally includes setting the terms under which they may enter—including price terms via tariffs.
Justice Gorsuch’s Climate Hypothetical
Justice Gorsuch posed a hypothetical that captured many justices’ concerns: Could a future president “declare a climate emergency and impose huge tariffs” under the government’s theory?
Sauer candidly responded: “It’s very likely that could be done.” However, he quickly added that this administration “would say that’s a hoax, it’s not a real crisis,” but under his interpretation, “that would be a question for Congress, not for the courts.” This admission appeared to concern several justices about the breadth of power being claimed.
Gorsuch also pressed on whether the president has inherent constitutional authority over tariffs in peacetime. Sauer definitively stated: “No, we do not contend that.” The president does not have inherent Article II authority to impose tariffs absent congressional authorization—but IEEPA provides that authorization, Sauer maintained.
Justice Barrett’s Textual Challenge
Justice Barrett asked a pointed question: Can Sauer point to any other place in the U.S. Code or any other time in history where the phrase “regulate importation” has been used to confer tariff-imposing authority?
Sauer cited Nixon’s tariffs under TWEA, but Barrett noted this was just an intermediate appellate court decision and pressed whether there were other examples. Sauer struggled to provide clear additional instances where that specific two-word phrase had been interpreted to grant tariff power in a statute, though he pointed to broader historical examples of “regulating commerce” including tariffs.
This exchange highlighted a key weakness in the government’s position: If “regulate importation” clearly means tariffs can be imposed, why is there so little statutory precedent explicitly confirming this interpretation?
The Challengers’ Case: Tariffs Are Taxes, and Only Congress Can Tax
Neal Katyal’s Opening: Common Sense and Constitutional Structure
Neal Katyal, representing the private parties challenging the tariffs, began with a fundamental principle: “Tariffs are taxes. They take dollars from Americans’ pockets and deposit them in the U.S. Treasury. Our founders gave that taxing power to Congress alone.”
Katyal framed the stakes dramatically: “Yet, here, the President bypassed Congress and imposed one of the largest tax increases in our lifetimes.” He invoked multiple legal doctrines—the presumption that Congress speaks clearly when imposing taxes and duties, and the Major Questions Doctrine—but emphasized it ultimately “comes down to common sense.”
“It’s simply implausible,” Katyal argued, “that in enacting IEEPA Congress handed the President the power to overhaul the entire tariff system and the American economy in the process, allowing him to set and reset tariffs on any and every product from any and every country at any and all times.”
The One-Way Ratchet Problem
Picking up on concerns raised by Justices Gorsuch and Barrett, Katyal emphasized what he called a “one-way ratchet”: “We will never get this power back if the government wins this case. What President wouldn’t veto legislation to rein this power in and pull out the tariff power?”
This structural argument resonated throughout the hearing: If the Court upholds these tariffs, Congress would effectively lose forever its constitutional power over taxation and trade, because no president would ever voluntarily surrender such authority, and Congress couldn’t muster a veto-proof supermajority to reclaim it.
IEEPA Is a Sanctions Statute, Not a Tax Statute
Katyal argued that context matters: “IEEPA is a sanction statute. It’s not a tax statute where Congress gave away the store.” Congress knows exactly how to delegate tariff powers—it has done so explicitly for 238 years, “always with real limits.”
He contrasted IEEPA with actual tariff statutes. IEEPA “uses ‘regulate,’ which Congress has used hundreds of times, never once to include tariffs.” Meanwhile, “IEEPA looks nothing like those laws” and “lacks the limits of every other tariff statute.”
Most tellingly, Katyal noted: “Even though presidents have used IEEPA to impose economic sanctions thousands of times, no president in IEEPA’s 50-year lifetime has ever tried to impose tariffs”—until now. This 50-year understanding, he suggested, reflects the original legislative intent and the proper interpretation of the statute.
Youngstown at Its Lowest Ebb
Katyal invoked the framework from Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, the famous case rejecting President Truman’s seizure of steel mills. Under Justice Jackson’s three-tier framework, presidential power is at its “lowest ebb” when the president acts contrary to congressional will.
Here, Katyal argued, “This is Youngstown at its lowest ebb.” President Trump bypassed statutes that do address tariffs, like Section 122, which allows tariffs for “large and serious trade deficits” but imposes clear guardrails: a 15 percent cap and 150-day limit. By invoking IEEPA instead, the president sought unlimited authority without congressional constraints.
The Parade of Horribles
Katyal embraced the hypotheticals posed by justices: “If the government wins, another president could declare a climate emergency and impose huge tariffs without fines or—without floors or ceilings.” He noted that while the current administration would call climate change “a hoax,” the next president “may not quite say that.”
“This is an open-ended power to junk the tariff laws,” Katyal argued, “and is certainly not conveyed by the word ‘regulate.’”
Responding to Justice Thomas on Embargoes
Justice Thomas posed a key question: Wouldn’t Katyal’s argument also apply to embargoes? If IEEPA doesn’t authorize tariffs, does it authorize complete bans on imports?
Katyal offered three distinctions. First is revenue-raising: Tariffs generate government revenue, making them quintessentially a tax—which requires clear congressional authorization. Embargoes don’t raise revenue; they’re pure regulatory prohibitions.
Second, there’s a difference between prohibiting transactions entirely (which IEEPA explicitly authorizes) and imposing a tax on transactions while allowing them to continue. Third, the 50-year history shows presidents using IEEPA for embargoes and sanctions but never for tariffs, suggesting the statute was understood to permit the former but not the latter.
The States’ Arguments: Oregon’s Solicitor General Weighs In
Benjamin Gutman on Licenses and Fees
Benjamin Gutman, Oregon’s Solicitor General representing the state parties, focused on the distinction between licenses and license fees. He emphasized that in IEEPA’s five decades, “I am not aware of any history of any fees charged for the licenses under this statute.”
IEEPA licenses, he explained, are used for humanitarian exceptions—for example, when the president bans transactions with a foreign country but grants licenses to continue them for humanitarian reasons. But these have never involved fee payments, suggesting the statute doesn’t contemplate revenue-raising measures.
The Meaning of “Or Otherwise”
Justice Gorsuch questioned what the phrase “or otherwise regulate” means in IEEPA’s text. Gutman argued that “or otherwise” could include things like instructions or licenses, but “having something that is a revenue-raising measure or even that is just an exaction of some sort is fundamentally, categorically different from what we understand instructions and licenses to be.”
His point was that the context of IEEPA—surrounded by words like “prohibit,” “regulate,” “direct,” “compel”—doesn’t carry a “financial connotation.” Reading tariffs into “regulate” would be inconsistent with this regulatory (rather than fiscal) framework.
Debunking the 19th Century Historical Arguments
Gutman addressed the government’s reliance on 19th-century cases about presidential authority over tariffs. He argued these cases don’t support the government’s position because “They were about the President’s power in wartime as an occupying military force to impose tariffs in occupied territory—in Mexico, in the Philippines, in California.”
These were not about tariffs on imports coming into the United States during peacetime. Even the Civil War cases involved export fees on cotton from the occupied South—not tariffs on goods entering the United States. “So I don’t think any of that provides authority for this general notion that there is a background principle that the President, even in wartime, has an Article II authority to impose tariffs, certainly without the consent of Congress,” Gutman concluded.
Key Exchanges and Revealing Moments
Chief Justice Roberts on Limiting Principles
Chief Justice Roberts asked several questions probing for limiting principles in the government’s theory. If “regulate importation” includes tariffs, what other powers might it include? Could the president not just tax but subsidize imports? The lack of clear boundaries in the government’s position appeared to concern the Chief Justice.
Justice Kagan on Congressional Intent
Justice Kagan interrupted Sauer’s discussion of the Major Questions Doctrine to probe congressional intent when it enacted IEEPA in 1977. She appeared skeptical that Congress, having just studied presidential emergency powers following Watergate and concerned about executive overreach, intended to hand presidents virtually unlimited tariff authority—especially when no president had used TWEA for tariffs beyond Nixon’s limited, temporary measure.
The Revenue Distinction Debate
A recurring theme was whether the revenue-raising nature of tariffs makes them categorically different from other IEEPA measures. The government tried to minimize this distinction, arguing that many regulations incidentally raise revenue. But challengers insisted that tariffs are primarily designed to raise revenue—they’re taxes—which triggers both constitutional and statutory interpretation canons requiring clear congressional authorization.
Practical Consequences and Political Accountability
Multiple justices seemed concerned about practical consequences. If the government wins, would future presidents of any party be able to reshape the American economy through emergency declarations and tariffs? The government’s response—that this is a political question for Congress to police through oversight and potential statutory amendments—didn’t seem to fully satisfy justices worried about the “one-way ratchet” problem.
What Happens Next
The Court will now deliberate and issue a decision, likely by June 2026. This case has enormous implications not just for these specific tariffs but for the balance of power between the president and Congress in foreign affairs and economic policy.
If the Court sides with the government, it would validate extraordinarily broad presidential authority to impose tariffs during declared emergencies—potentially without meaningful limits on duration, scope, or amount. If the Court sides with the challengers, it would preserve Congress’s constitutional role in taxation and trade policy but might complicate presidential responses to genuine economic emergencies.
The outcome could affect trillions of dollars in trade, thousands of businesses, and the fundamental structure of American constitutional governance. As Katyal noted, this power, once validated by the Court, would never return to Congress. The stakes could hardly be higher.
Context for General Readers
What is IEEPA?
The International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), enacted in 1977, gives the president authority to regulate economic transactions during declared national emergencies involving foreign threats. It was created after Watergate-era concerns about excessive presidential power, replacing the broader Trading With the Enemy Act for peacetime use. Presidents have used IEEPA thousands of times to impose sanctions, freeze assets, and block transactions—but never, until Trump’s 2025 tariffs, to impose broad tariffs.
What is the Major Questions Doctrine?
The Major Questions Doctrine is a principle of statutory interpretation developed by the Supreme Court in recent years. It holds that when an administrative agency (or, potentially, the president) claims authority to make decisions of “vast economic and political significance,” courts should expect Congress to have spoken clearly in authorizing that power. The doctrine prevents agencies from finding sweeping powers in vague or ambiguous statutory language. Whether it applies to presidential foreign affairs powers is a novel question this case addresses.
The Youngstown Framework
Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer (1952) rejected President Truman’s seizure of steel mills during the Korean War. Justice Jackson’s famous concurrence established a three-tier framework for evaluating presidential power: (1) when the president acts with congressional authorization, his power is at its maximum; (2) when Congress is silent, there’s a “zone of twilight”; and (3) when the president acts contrary to congressional will, his power is “at its lowest ebb” and can rely only on his own constitutional powers minus any constitutional powers of Congress.
Why This Case Matters
Tariffs aren’t just trade policy—they’re taxes paid by American consumers and businesses. They can reshape entire industries, affect prices of everyday goods, and generate hundreds of billions in government revenue. The Constitution gives Congress the power “to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises” and “to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations.” If the president can impose tariffs unilaterally whenever he declares an emergency, it would represent a massive shift of constitutional power from the legislative to the executive branch—a shift that, as multiple justices noted, might be irreversible.
Source Citation:
United States, Supreme Court. Learning Resources, Inc., et al. v. Donald J. Trump, President of the United States, et al., and Donald J. Trump, President of the United States, et al. v. V.O.S. Selections, Inc., et al. Nos. 24-1287 and 25-250. Oral Arguments. Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D.C., 5 Nov. 2025. Heritage Reporting Corporation, 2025.