Written By: Hannah Rice
On February 20, 2026, the United States Supreme Court delivered a landmark decision in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, holding that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) does not authorize the President to impose the sweeping tariffs we have seen President Trump issue during his second term. Writing for the Court, Chief Justice Roberts framed the dispute as a fundamental separation of powers question: who controls the taxing power of the United States? The Court’s answer was clear and grounded in constitutional text. Article I, Section 8 provides that “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imports, and Excises.” Emphasizing this allocation of authority, the Court stated, “[t]he power to impose tariffs is ‘very clear[ly]…a branch of taxing power,” citing to Gibbons v. Ogden. Because tariffs are taxes on imports that raise revenue, the Court explained, they fall squarely within Congress’s exclusive domain.
The majority highlighted the constitutional stakes: “The Framers did not vest any part of the taxing power in the Executive Branch.” Indeed, the government conceded during oral argument that the President has “no inherent authority to impose tariffs during peacetime.” Thus, the administration relied entirely on IEEPA as statutory authorization for the sweeping tariffs imposed to address drug trafficking and trade deficits. But the Court rejected that reading of the statute. It characterized the administration’s argument as resting on “two words separated by 16 others” in IEEPA: “regulate” and “importation.” The Court concluded, “the President asserts the independent power to impose tariffs on imports from any country, of any product, at any rate, for any amount of time. Those words cannot bear such weight.”
The decision draws heavily on the major questions doctrine, which requires clear congressional authorization before the President may exercise powers of vast economic and political significance. The Court reiterated its longstanding reluctance to “read into ambiguous statutory text” as huge transfers of power, and emphasized that this principle is especially relevant where the asserted delegation involves the core congressional power of the purse. The majority warned that accepting the administration’s position would fundamentally reshape our current understanding of the constitution. It described the government’s interpretation as one that “would ‘represent[] a transformative expansion’ of the President’s authority over tariff policy.” Even further, the Court cautioned that it would “replace the longstanding executive-legislative collaboration over trade policy with unchecked Presidential policymaking.” In other words, the issue was whether Congress had clearly surrendered one of its most fundamental constitutional powers. The Court concluded it had not.
Historical practice further undermined the government’s argument. In the fifty years since IEEPA’s enactment, no President had ever used it to impose tariffs, “let alone tariffs of this magnitude and scope.” The Court placed heavy emphasis on this absence of precedent, explaining that the “lack of historical precedent, coupled with the breadth of authority that the President now claims, suggests that the tariffs extend beyond the President’s legitimate reach.”
The Court also highlighted the economic implications of such an action. It described the President’s claim of broad statutory power over the national economy as “extravagant” and noted that the “economic and political consequences of the IEEPA tariffs are astonishing.” The stakes, the Court observed, “dwarf those of other major questions cases.”
Just from a textualist approach, the majority rejected the argument that the power to “regulate” importation includes the power to tax. If Congress intended to delegate this kind of tariff authority, it would have done so explicitly. In fact, in other trade statutes, Congress has consistently used explicit language such as “duties” and has imposed caps, time limits, and procedural safeguards. The Court concluded that it was implausible to believe that Congress “hid delegation of its birth-right power to tax within the quotidian power to regulate.”
The ruling ultimately affirms a foundational constitutional principle: major economic policy decisions involving taxation of any kind must originate with Congress. Emergency statutes do not create an exception to that rule, nor do foreign affairs blur the requirement of clear legislative authorization. While the dissenters argued that IEEPA’s language should be read more broadly and warned of practical complications, the majority framed the case as one about the constitution rather than policy. The President may pursue trade objectives through statutes that explicitly authorize tariffs, but absent clear congressional authorization, he may not unilaterally reshape national tariff policy.
In reaffirming that “the Constitution lodges the Nation’s lawmaking powers in Congress alone,” the Supreme Court has drawn a clear constitutional line. The decision invalidates the tariffs and also strengthens the judiciary’s role in upholding the separation of powers in cases involving attempts to expand executive power over the national economy.
Sources
Amy Howe, Supreme Court strikes down tariffs, SCOTUSblog (Feb. 20, 2026), https://w
ww.scotusblog.com/2026/02/supreme-court-strikes-down-tariffs/
Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, No. 24-1287 (U.S. Feb. 20, 2026)