By Amy Howe

Lawyers for small businesses and states challenging President Donald Trump’s authority to impose sweeping tariffs on almost all goods imported into the United States urged the Supreme Court on Monday, October 20, to leave in place rulings by lower courts that struck down most of the tariffs. One group of small businesses told the justices that the tariffs “have equated to the largest peacetime tax increase in American history,” while another contends that the tariffs “upend[] a century of trade law.”

Trump imposed the tariffs in a series of executive orders beginning in February. They can be categorized in two groups. One group, known as the “trafficking” tariffs, apply to goods from three countries – Canada, China, and Mexico – that Trump believes have not made sufficient efforts to stop the flow of fentanyl into the United States. The second group, known as the “reciprocal” tariffs, impose tariffs ranging from 10% to 50% on products from virtually all countries.

Trump’s executive orders relied on a federal law, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, that gives the president the power to take action to “deal with any unusual and extraordinary threat, which has its source in whole or substantial part outside the United States, to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States” if he declares a national emergency “with respect to such threat.” When there is a national emergency, the president under IEEPA can “regulate . . . importation” of “property in which any foreign country or national thereof has any interest.”

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