“Trump appointees who defy the president’s will are showing the courage of their convictions, applying the law as they understand it rather than reflexively deferring to the politician who gave them their jobs. But Trump, who takes it for granted that justices vote the way they do for political reasons, neither understands nor appreciates judicial independence.”
“These new tariffs are likely unlawful too.
Indeed, Trump’s own attorneys even admitted as much during the legal battle over the original tariffs.
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Trump is leaning on Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974
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Section 122 allows presidents to impose tariffs of up to 15 percent for up to 150 days to “deal with large and serious United States balance-of-payments deficits.”
What’s that? The Trump administration wants to pretend—or perhaps wrongly believes—that it’s the same thing as a trade deficit. It’s not.
A balance-of-payments deficit is an archaic problem that existed before the introduction of floating exchange rates for foreign currencies. Changes made to the international monetary system in the 1970s—changes that Milton Friedman advocated, it’s worth noting—eliminated the circumstances that could lead to a balance-of-payments deficit.
“The United States does not have an international payments problem, fundamental or otherwise, and has not had one since we adopted a floating exchange rate more than five decades ago,” explains Bryan Riley, director of the Free Trade Initiative at the National Taxpayers Union. “Therefore, Section 122 does not give President Trump the legal authority to impose tariffs.”
Just like with the IEEPA tariffs, Trump’s use of Section 122 ignores the plain language of the law and invokes a broad executive power where Congress clearly provided a narrow one.”
“Tariffs don’t conjure consumer demand out of thin air. Americans were buying plenty of washing machines, clothing, and steel before the tariffs. What changes is where some things are made. Production shifts from foreign manufacturers with efficiency or cost advantages to more expensive domestic manufacturers. American producers stand to gain, except when they must pay tariffs to import the materials they need (as is often the case).
But everyone who buys the product pays more. The extra $100 a family spends on a washing machine won’t instead be spent at the restaurant next door, the repair shop, or the shoe store. Real wages—what your paycheck actually buys—fall when the prices of most things rise.
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When Americans buy less from China, it’s true, some of our overseas business competitors lose revenue. But what about the American households losing access to cheaper goods? Or the American producers losing access to cheaper materials and ingredients that make them more competitive?
Both countries take a hit. Serious analysts who favor targeted tariffs for strategic reasons generally acknowledge this tradeoff and argue that the benefits justify the costs. What they don’t claim is that such costs don’t exist.
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Even when firms do absorb some of the hit, the money doesn’t disappear. These companies instead hire fewer people, pay lower wages, invest less or, in industries where profit margins are already thin, hike future prices. The burden just takes a different route to your wallet.”
The Conservative Supreme Court justices can’t agree on what the major questions doctrine is and what exceptions to it should be.
The Supreme Court made a major change in how lower courts operate by limiting nationwide injunctions. Such injunctions could have prevented the US government from illegally taking all this money in the first place and avoided the issue of if, when, and to whom, the tariff money is paid back. This policy allows the president to act illegally for months or years until the Supreme Court finally resolves a case.
“The White House said the new tariffs take effect Feb. 24. Trump’s proclamation exempts a long list of products from the new levies, including beef, tomatoes, oranges, pharmaceuticals, passenger vehicles and certain critical minerals. It also excludes products governed by a trade deal with Canada and Mexico.
Trump vowed Feb. 20 to forge ahead and enact tariffs through other methods after the high court ruled the president doesn’t have the congressional authority to impose tariffs under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
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Trump cited another section of the 1974 Trade Act for the 10% tariffs. The new tariffs apply to countries that send the United States more than they import. But that type of tariff lasts for only 150 days, unless Congress votes to extend them.
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U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said investigations over unfair trade practices could lead to other tariffs. Trump’s proclamation directs Greer to “investigate certain unreasonable and discriminatory acts, policies, and practices that burden or restrict U.S. commerce.”
“We have a lot of tools out there,” Greer said. “You can look forward in the coming days and weeks to see all of that come out.””
“The federal government’s data do not show this “burst” in construction jobs. In fact, quite the opposite: Construction jobs declined by 11,000 in December, the most recent month for which Bureau of Labor Statistics data are available, and grew by just 0.2 percent during 2025 as a whole. Like most other blue-collar professions, jobs in the construction industry have been underwater since last April.
The president’s tariffs aren’t the only factor shaping that job market, but they surely aren’t helping. The Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) reports that overall construction input prices climbed 3.4 percent during 2025.
“Many tariff-affected materials, like derivative metal products and switchgear equipment, have experienced considerable price escalation in 2025,” Anirban Basu, chief economist for the ABC, said in a statement earlier this month. He pointed out that the price of aluminum, which is subject to huge new tariffs imposed by Trump in early 2025, climbed by more than 25 percent last year.
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Why are gas prices falling when other products are getting more expensive?
For one, we are enjoying a period of low oil prices globally. That’s a good thing, though it is also largely beyond the president’s control.
It also seems important to note that gasoline and other oil products are exempt from the Trump administration’s tariffs.
In other words, when a barrel of crude oil crosses the border from Canada, it doesn’t suddenly have an extra 25 percent tax tacked onto it. But when a roll of aluminum or a pallet of lumber crosses the same border, it suddenly becomes significantly more expensive for Americans to buy. As a result, it has become more expensive to build things but gasoline has remained more affordable.”
“Trump’s tariffs, framed as industrial policy to reindustrialize the country, protect workers, and lower prices. Instead, tariffs have quietly consumed much of the manufacturing sector’s profits. This is unsurprising. Most U.S. imports are inputs used to make American goods. Tariffs, therefore, are taxes on American manufacturing.
Empirical work by the Kiel Institute shows that foreign exporters absorb only a trivial share of the cost. Roughly 96 percent of the burden is passed to American buyers. U.S. households and businesses—not foreign firms—overwhelmingly covered the roughly $200 billion in customs revenue collected in 2025. Companies we import from responded not by cutting prices but by shipping fewer goods to the U.S. As Kiel economist Julian Hinz put it, the tariffs amounted to an “own goal” that raised costs, compressed profits, and weakened the very industries they were meant to protect.
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Tariffs did not restore competitiveness or pricing power. They jacked up costs and made American production less attractive at the margin.”