WASHINGTON, D.C. – In a 6-3 decision the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday held that President Trump’s aggressive approach to tariffs on products entering the United States from across the world was not permitted under a 1977 law called the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).
The decision was authored by Chief Justice John Roberts who was joined in the majority vote by conservative Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, both Trump appointees, along with the three liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson
Dissenting were the three remaining conservative justices, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh.
You can read the full 170-page ruling below.
No official statement by Trump was immediately released, but CNN Chief White House Correspondent Kaitlan Collins posted on X from the White House governors’ breakfast that Trump called the ruling a “disgrace” and said he had a back-up plan.
The Joint Economic Committee – Minority released an updated report estimating that American families have already paid more than $1,700 each in tariff costs since President Trump took office. Combining Treasury Department data on the amount of tariff revenue collected across the first year of Trump’s term with independent estimates from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office of the percent of each tariff dollar that is paid by American consumers, the Committee found that they paid more than $231 billion in total tariff costs between February 2025 and January 2026, an average of more than $1,700 per family.
“President Trump’s tariffs have been a disaster for American families, driving costs up at the worst possible time,” said U.S. Senator Maggie Hassan, D-NH, Ranking Member of the Joint Economic Committee. “While the Supreme Court has thankfully and correctly ruled that much of Trump’s tariff agenda was an illegal exercise of presidential power, today’s ruling cannot undo the damage that tariffs have already caused.”
U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-NH, Ranking member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a senior member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, issued the following statement:
“Today marks a major step toward providing relief to Americans who have been forced to pay higher prices or lost sales due to the President’s illegal, reckless trade war. I am relieved that the Supreme Court sided with the more than 200 members of Congress I led in filing an Amicus Curiae brief arguing that the tariffs the President has imposed under IEEPA are unlawful. I urge the Administration to act swiftly to pay refunds of these unlawfully collected tariffs, and hope wholesalers and large corporations work to pass those refunds on to families and small businesses.
“Despite promising as a candidate to lower prices, President Trump has done the opposite in office with his chaotic and costly trade war, which has made every aspect of life more expensive for Americans. And throughout the last year, I have also heard from countless Granite State small businesses about the extraordinary challenges they’ve faced as a result of this haphazard, on-and-off-again trade war. That helps explain why our economy has actually lost tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs since the President started his trade war. I hope the Administration will take this opportunity to listen to the concerns of families and businesses alike and rethink these misguided policies, rather than straining to find new ways to unilaterally raise taxes on the American people.
“Should the Administration be unwilling to listen, I will continue to forcefully push back against these misguided trade policies to protect New Hampshire businesses and families.”
U.S. Congresswoman Maggie Goodlander, D-NH, also weighed in on the decision with the following statement: “The Supreme Court’s decision to strike down President Trump’s unconstitutional tariffs is a victory for hardworking Granite Staters who have been paying the painful price of chaotic and corrupt trade wars. We are not a country governed by one man’s whims. We are a nation of laws, and I will keep fighting to lower costs and to ensure that no President can act like a king.”