Supreme Court Strikes Down Trump’s Broad-Based Tariff Authority

By Alex Carter | Friday, 20 February 2026

Vice President JD Vance criticized the Supreme Court’s decision on Friday, which found President Donald Trump had overstepped his authority by imposing broad tariffs across nearly all U.S. trading partners.

In a 6-3 ruling, the justices determined that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not authorize a president to impose sweeping tariffs, marking a significant rebuke of Trump’s use of emergency powers to reshape U.S. trade policy.

“Today, the Supreme Court decided that Congress, despite giving the president the ability to ‘regulate imports,’ didn’t actually mean it,” Vance wrote on social media. “This is lawlessness from the Court, plain and simple.”

He added that the ruling would only make it harder for the president to protect American industries and supply chain resilience.

“President Trump has a wide range of other tariff powers, and he will use them to defend American workers and advance this administration’s trade priorities,” Vance stated.

The high court’s decision upholds a lower court ruling that struck down the tariffs and voids a separate district court ruling for lack of jurisdiction.

Trump defended the tariffs as central to his economic agenda, citing market benchmarks achieved faster than critics predicted.

“Our stock market has just recently broken 50,000 on the Dow and simultaneously, and even more amazingly, broken 7,000 on the S&P,” Trump told reporters Friday. “Two numbers that everybody thought upon our landslide election victory could not be attained.”

He noted that the ruling does not significantly limit the administration’s ability to escalate tariffs using other authorities, referencing language from Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s dissent.

“Although I firmly disagree with the court’s holding today, the decision might not substantially constrain a president’s ability to order tariffs going forward,” Trump said. “And it doesn’t.”