International Trade Court sets aside all tariffs that Trump put in effect.

Talk about a court stepping right smack dap in the middle of a political issue.

So to start with, the ruling basically suggested that the tariffs were not justified under the emergency powers that Trump was using with IEEPA. Apparently the emergency was not such that it would justify across the board global tariffs, which the court suggested would require Congressional action.

Obviously these tariffs were being used as a negotiating tactic, and the concept of an emergency was abstract. But the concept of laws being on the books that allow emergency use of this or that has always been something that has been used at the discretion of the people put in charge of declaring emergencies. We have never had a court step in and suggest that storm relief or humanitarian relief were not "real" emergencies. Mainly because that sets up the precedent that courts (not the people put in charge by law) will make determinations. Could you imagine if a judge stepped in and suggested that a hurricane did not qualify as a emergency because it wasn't large enough? It's never been a judge's call and it should never be.

While technically Congress is who sets taxes and is in control of the finances, there are times when Congress provides a law to provide the ability for the President to use executive actions to do the same thing. In this case, Congress did provide a law that created the United States Trade Commission, which was part of the executive branch. It was originally named the Tariff Commission rather than the Trade Commission, so we know specifically what it was about. This took much of the power of tariffs out of Congress and provided it to the executive branch. The idea being that Congress could create new legislation to keep things in check if need be.

The main argument here is not that the President does not have authority to put tariffs into play. Trump did it in his first term. Biden did it. Many Presidents have done it. The argument is that there was no emergency that provided authority to create the sort of blanket tariffs that Trump used. This is a classic case of the judicial branch replacing the judgement of the person in charge of a decision, with their own judgement, because that is how people in robes roll.

All that being said, the international trade court ruled and I think it will be a cold day in hell where another court rules that this court was wrong on the merits. Are they wrong on the process, the politics, and the underlying separation of powers? Absolutely. But will another court step up and suggest that there is an actual trade "emergency" that requires across the board global tariffs? Doubtful. Not sure what the next step is, but eventually this will be heard by the USSC. That is a near certainty.

There is an avenue where the high court could possibly suggest that the ultimate decision making was given to the executive branch (not the judicial branch), but that would mean ceding judicial power. Not sure that the Roberts court has five members willing to do this. I think it would be possibly the correct call? Laws that provide emergency declarations to the executive should not be second guessed by the courts, at least not in my humble opinion. But we are long past the idea of judicial restraint and it seems like a long shot that they will provide any restraint here.