Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett said Wednesday that the Supreme Court’s skepticism during oral arguments suggests a majority of justices may rule that President Donald Trump overstepped his constitutional authority.
The Supreme Court appeared ready Wednesday to curb Trump’s use of emergency powers to impose tariffs, grilling his legal team over whether he encroached on Congress’ authority to tax and regulate trade. Appearing on “The Evening Edit,” Jarrett said the Court’s ruling may hinge on a single missing word in the statute.
“It’s true that Congress long ago delegated some of that power to the chief executive to regulate trade, and Trump’s team argues here that, you know, that includes tariffs,” Jarrett told host Elizabeth MacDonald. “The problem is the relevant statute doesn’t actually use the word tariffs, and that’s the rub. So the High Court might strike down some of these tariffs. We’ll have to wait and see, or maybe some sort of compromise.”
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Jarrett said the justices’ questioning showed deep divisions over executive authority.
“Liz, sometimes it’s really easy to read the Supreme Court’s anticipated decision, just listen to the oral arguments. They reveal themselves. That wasn’t today. It was far more difficult. They were asking tough, challenging questions of both sides. And there were these, you know, in the weeds debates about verbs versus nouns and parsing semantics of singular words. But my overall sense is that there may be a majority of justices that think that Trump went too far, exceeded his authority, usurping the constitutional power of Congress over taxation and foreign commerce. Those are core Article I powers of Congress.”
Trump invoked two national emergencies to defend his tariffs, first tying the fentanyl crisis to new duties on Canada, China, and Mexico in February, then citing trade imbalances in April to launch “Liberation Day” import taxes starting at 10% and escalating by country.
Solicitor General John Sauer argued that Congress’ authorization to “regulate importation” under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act naturally covers tariffs even without naming them. Chief Justice John Roberts pushed back, warning that this interpretation would hand the president sweeping, open-ended power to tax any import from any nation.
“Congress uses tariffs in other provisions, but not here,” Roberts noted. “And yet the justification is being used for a power to impose tariffs on any product, from any country, in any amount, for any length of time. That does seem like it’s major authority.”
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