You Can’t Charge $1

The Supreme Court narrows Trump’s tariff power. In a pique he announces a new 150 day global levy and calls it strength

Let’s take a breath and step back from the noise, because what happened Friday was not just a tariff ruling. It was a stress test for the Constitution, followed immediately by an Olympic routine in political face-saving.

The Supreme Court, in a 6–3 decision, struck down Donald Trump’s sweeping global tariffs imposed under emergency powers. Not tariffs as a concept. Not trade policy in general. The specific maneuver of declaring a national emergency and unilaterally taxing the world. Effectively, they shut down rule by fiat.

The Court’s message was almost boring in its clarity: taxation belongs to Congress. IEEPA, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, does not contain the word tariff. The Constitution very much contains the word tax, and it assigns that power to the legislative branch.

That is precisely why this ruling detonates. For months, tariffs have been Trump’s favorite blunt instrument. They were leverage, punishment, applause line, budget balancer, factory reviver, fentanyl stopper, war ender, and possibly a cure for male pattern baldness. If there was a problem, there was a tariff for it. Now the Court has said: not like that.