Tariff Ruling

This week we talk about Trump’s tariffs, the Supreme Court, and negotiating leverage.

We also discuss trade wars, Greenland, and the IEEPA.

Recommended Book: Smoke and Ashes by Amitav Ghosh

Transcript

I’ve spoken on this show before about tariffs and about US President Trump’s enthusiasm for tariffs as an underpinning of his trade policy. Last October, back in 2025 I did an episode on tariff leverage and why the concept of an ongoing trade war is so appealing to Trump—it basically gives him a large whammy on anyone he enters negotiations with, because the US market is massive and everyone wants access to it, and tariffs allow him to bring the hammer down on anyone he doesn’t like, or who doesn’t kowtow in what he deems to be an appropriate manner.

So he can slap a large tariff on steel or pharmaceuticals or cars from whichever country he likes just before he enters negotiations with that country, and then those negotiations open with him in an advantageous spot: they have to give him things just to get those tariffs to go away—they have to negotiate just to get things back to square one.

That’s how it’s supposed to work, anyway. What we talked about a bit back in October is TACO theory, TACO standing for Trump Always Chickens Out—the idea is that other world leaders had gotten wise to Trump’s strategy, which hasn’t changed since his first administration, and he has mostly been a doubling-down on that one, primary approach, to the point that they can step into these negotiations, come up with something to give him that allows him to claim that he’s won, to make it look like he negotiated well, and then they get things back down to a more reasonable level; maybe not square one, but not anything world-ending, and not anything they weren’t prepared and happy to give up.

In some cases, though, instead of kowtowing in this way so that Trump can claim a victory, whether or not a victory was actually tallied, some countries and industries and the businesses that make up those industries have simply packed up their ball and gone home.

China has long served as a counterbalance to the US in terms of being a desirable market and a hugely influential player across basically every aspect of geopolitics and the global economy, and this oppositional, antagonistic approach to trade has made the US less appealing as a trade partner, and China more appealing in comparison.

So some of these entities have negotiated to a level where they could still ship their stuff to the US and US citizens would still be willing to pay what amounts to an extra tax on all these goods, because that’s how tariffs work, that fee is paid by the consumers, not by the businesses or the origin countries, but others have given up and redirected their goods to other places. And while that’s a big lift sometimes, the persistence of this aggression and antagonism has made it a worthwhile investment for many of these entities, because the US has become so unpredictable and unreliable that it’s just not worth the headache anymore.

What I’d like to talk about today is a recent Supreme Court decision related to Trump’s tariffs, and what looks likely to happen next, in the wake of that ruling.

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Ever since Trump stepped back into office for his second term, in January of 2025, he has aggressively instilled new and ever-growing tariffs on basically everyone, but on some of the US’s most important trade partners, like Mexico and Canada, in particular.

These tariffs have varied and compounded, and they’ve applied to strategic goods that many US presidents have tried to hobble in various ways, favoring US-made versions of steel and microchips, for instance, so that local makers of these things have an advantage over their foreign-made alternatives, or have a more balanced shot against alternatives made in parts of the world where labor is cheaper and standards are different.

But this new wave of tariffs were broad based, hitting everyone to some degree, and that pain was often taken away, at least a little, after leaders kowtowed, at times even giving him literal gold-plated gifts in order to curry favor, and/or funneling money into his family’s private companies and other interests, allowing him to use these tariffs as leverage for personal gain, not just national advantage, in other cases giving him what at least looked outwardly to be a negotiating win.

Things spiraled pretty quickly by mid-2025, when China pushed back against these tariffs, adding their own reciprocal tariffs on US goods, and at one point extra duties on Chinese imports coming into the US hit 145%.

Shortly thereafter, though, and here we see that TACO acronym proving true, once again, Trump agreed to slash these tariffs for 90 days, and around the same time, in May of 2025, a federal appeals court temporarily reinstated some of Trump’s largest-scale tariffs after a lower court ruled that they couldn’t persist.

The remainder of 2025 was a story of Trump trying to strike individual deals with a bunch of trade partners, like South Korea, Indonesia, and India, in some cases via direct negotiation, in others with a bunch of threats that eventually led to a sort of mutual standoff that no one was particularly happy about.

2026 was greeted with a threat by Trump to impose a huge wave of new tariffs on eight major European allies, those tariffs sticking around until these nations agreed to allow the US to buy Greenland, which was an obsession of Trump’s at that point, but a lot of Trump’s tariff posturing was derailed by a Supreme Court decision that landed in mid-February, in which the justices decided, 6 to 3, that Trump’s reciprocal tariffs are unconstitutional, as setting and changing tariffs is a Congressional power, not a Presidential one.

This was a serious blow to Trump and his stated policies, as pretty much all of his economic plans oriented around the idea—which most economists have said is bunk and based on fantasy, not reality, but still—that putting a bunch of tariffs on everything will allow the US to earn so much additional revenue that the deficit can be paid down.

It’s worth noting here that, just as those economists predicted, the deficit has only gotten larger under both Trump administrations, and in fact the growth of the US debt has sped up, not declined, despite the additional billions being pulled into government coffers by these tariffs, because the Trump administration’s spending is massive, and because the losses related to tariffs are also significant. But tariffs remain center to his policy nonetheless, so this was a major blow.

This ruling also seemed likely to defang a lot of Trump’s threats and drain his leverage at the negotiating table, as he could no longer threaten everyone with more tariffs, practically booting them from or weakening them on the US market.

So Trump was pissed, and as he tends to do, he publicly raged about the decision, which was made by a Supreme Court that is heavily stacked in his favor; which gives an indication of just how unpopular and unconstitutional all of this has been.

But immediately after that decision landed, he announced that, using alternative authorities—different powers—he would be imposing a blanket 10% tariff on everything coming into the US, and the following day announced that it would be a 15% tariff on everything, instead.

This does seem to be something Trump has the power to do, but he can only do it under the auspices of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, and these tariffs will only last for 150 days, max, and might also be challenged in court.

Also notably, some entities, like Britain and Australia, will face higher rates than they faced under the previous tariff setup, because of how they are applied and compound with other trade barriers, or the nature of what they export to the US market, while others, including China, will see their tariffs substantially drop.

Which could make things tricky, as that implies some of the previously negotiated deals have changed post-deal, or in some cases mid-negotiation; which means a lot more work to get things where everyone wants them, but also a loss of legitimacy and credibility for this administration, as they seem to be negotiating using powers they don’t actually have and making promises they can’t keep.

All of which, rather than simplifying and clarifying things for the US market and our international trade partners, actually further complicates them, at least for now, until the dust settles.

It does seem likely Trump’s administration will continue to try to leverage whatever power they can in this matter, grabbing at levers that haven’t been previously used, or used in this way, and those attempts will almost certainly be legally challenged, which could lead to more court cases, and a lot more uncertainty in the meantime, until those cases are figured it.

It’s also created new rifts within the Republican party, as Trump seems to be going after those who voted against his tariffs, or in any other way supported their removal, and he’s raged against the Supreme Court justices, even those he put into place and who are ideologically aligned with the Republican party almost always, which could also lead to more fracturing within his base, leading up to the November 2026 Congressional elections.

One more thing that’s worth noting here is that Trump’s usual tactic of trying to distract from things he doesn’t want people to pay attention to is in full operation following this court case: as all this has been happening, and against the backdrop of increasingly serious allegations related to his abundant presence in the Epstein files, he’s been talking more about potentially attacking Iran and releasing files on aliens, on extraterrestrials on Earth and in the US.

So we’re likely to see a lot more of that sort of thing in the coming months, especially if things continue to not go his way in regards to these tariffs and the hubbub surrounding them, but this story will shape global and US economics for years to come, not to mention on-the-ground realities for many people today, which should substantially impact Trump’s popularity and voter behavior come November.

Show Notes

https://www.axios.com/2026/02/20/supreme-court-trump-energy-tariffs

https://www.axios.com/2026/02/20/trump-tariff-plan-section-122-trade-act

https://www.axios.com/2026/02/20/trump-scotus-tariff-refund-battle

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/21/business/economy/trump-tariffs-trade-war.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/22/business/trump-tariffs-japan-indonesia.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/20/us/politics/supreme-court-trump-tariffs-takeaways.html

https://apnews.com/live/supreme-court-tariff-ruling-updates

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c0l9r67drg7t

https://heatmap.news/economy/clean-energy-tariff-ruling

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/02/20/us/trump-tariffs-supreme-court

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/02/supreme-court-blocks-trumps-emergency-tariffs-billions-in-refunds-may-be-owed/

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/20/what-will-happen-to-trump-tariffs-after-supreme-court-verdict

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/21/business/economy/tariffs-supreme-court-global-busines-reaction.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/21/business/trump-deminimis-loophole-closed.html

https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-am-5b34aa80-2020-453a-bef1-8cf648e9b3c3.html

https://www.axios.com/2026/02/20/trump-tariff-plan-section-122-trade-act

https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/02/supreme-court-strikes-down-tariffs/

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/donald-trump-supreme-court-tariffs-ieepa-john-roberts-brett-kavanaugh-90daf559

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-1287_4gcj.pdf

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/21/us/politics/supreme-court-tariffs-conservatives.html

https://www.wsj.com/economy/u-s-manufacturing-is-in-retreat-and-trumps-tariffs-arent-helping-d2af4316

https://budgetlab.yale.edu/research/state-us-tariffs-scotus-ruling-update

https://www.kielinstitut.de/fileadmin/Dateiverwaltung/IfW-Publications/fis-import/92fb3f30-07b8-4dcf-b2bc-fbefb831f1a1-KPB201_EN.pdf

https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2026/02/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-imposes-a-temporary-import-duty-to-address-fundamental-international-payment-problems/

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/tariff-refunds-supreme-court-trump-rcna259968

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/its-the-end-of-the-beginning-of-the-tariff-war-88a08d37

https://www.axios.com/2026/02/21/trump-tariff-supreme-court-increase

https://www.axios.com/2026/02/21/alien-files-conspiracy-theories-usa

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