Comment by apexalpha
3 days ago
It's odd to me that something as fundamental as 'can the President unilaterally impose tariffs on any country he wants anytime he wants' is apparently so ill defined in law that 9 justices can't agree on it.
3 days ago
It's odd to me that something as fundamental as 'can the President unilaterally impose tariffs on any country he wants anytime he wants' is apparently so ill defined in law that 9 justices can't agree on it.
It seems likely to me the ruling took this long because John Roberts wanted to get a more unanimous ruling.
Additionally, the law in this case isn’t ill defined whatsoever. Alito, Thomas, and to a lesser extent Kavanaugh are just partisan hacks. For many years I wanted to believe they had a consistent and defensible legal viewpoint, even if I thought it was misguided. However the past six years have destroyed that notion. They’re barely even trying to justify themselves in most of these rulings; and via the shadow docket frequently deny us even that barest explanation.
> For many years I wanted to believe they had a consistent and defensible legal viewpoint, even if I thought it was misguided.
Watching from across the Atlantic, I was always fascinated by Scalia's opinions (especially his dissents). I usually vehemently disagreed with him on principle (and I do believe his opinions were principled), but I often found myself conceding to his points, from a "what is and what should be are different things" angle.
Scalia wrote some really interesting opinions for sure. Feel like the arguments are only going to get worse :(
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Amy Coney Barrett has somewhat taken up the mantel, but her legal reasoning is probably superior.
Thomas wants to pretend he's the OG originalist, but I don't think he is anywhere near Barrett's peer.
Kavanaugh clearly isn’t in the same bucket. His votes go either way. I don’t recall seeing a single decision this administration where either Alito or Thomas wrote against a White House position. Not just in case opinions but even in an order. I don’t think we’ve seen a justice act as a stalking horse for the president in this way since Fortas.
Kavanaugh votes either way, but I don't think this is out of principle... I just think he's just kind of an idiot and thinks he can write a justification for just about any of his biases without making those biases obvious. It's kind of apparent if you read his opinions; they tend to be very verbose (his dissent here is 63 pages!) without saying a whole lot, and he gets sloppy with citations, selectively citing precedent in some cases while others he simply hand-waves. Take his opinion in Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo (the "Kavanaugh stop" case): there's a reason why no one joined his concurrence.
Kavanaugh strikes me as principled, but in kind of a Type-A, "well, actually" sort of way where he will get pulled into rabbit holes and want to die on random textual hills.
He is all over the map, but not in a way that seems consistent or predictable.
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His reputation will be forever tarnished by "Kavanaugh stops"
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You need to be cautious with the notion of “his votes go either way”. In Hungary, where I’m from, and a Trump kinda guy rules for 16 years, judges vote either way… but they vote against the government only when it doesn’t really matter for the ruling party. Either the government wants a scapegoat anyway why they cannot do something, or just simply nobody cares or even see the consequences. Like the propaganda newspapers are struck down routinely… but they don’t care because nobody, who they really care about, see the consequences of those. So judges can say happily that they are independent, yet they are not at all.
This fake independence works so well, that most Hungarians lie themselves that judiciary is free.
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Weren’t Sotomator and Jackson the same with Biden? Kagan is much more principled.
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Alito is one of the original proponents of the unitary executive theory (way before he was a Supreme Court justice). Everything he does should be looked at as an attempt to impose said theory and destroy America.
its truly bizarre that anyone with this view could get approved by congress. its so antithetical to the entire american political system. just blows my mind how spineless congress as an institution has been for decades.
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I don't think that is compatible with his ruling in Biden v. Nebraska, nor some others during Biden's term.
The dissent seems to be "Ignoring whether or not the President acted lawfully, it would sure create an awful big mess if we undid it. And he's gonna try again anyways, and maybe even succeed in that future attempt, creating an even bigger mess. So for these reasons, it shouldn't be undone."
Curious if others have different readings.
When all of your decisions can be predetermined without even knowing the context of the matter you are surely a hack. It goes like this.....'Does this matter benefit Trump, corporations, rich people or evangelicals?'. Yes? Alito and Thomas will argue its lawful. Every single time.
Thomas isn’t a hack, he’s a shill. And he’s not even trying to be subtle about it. He’s somebody’s bitch and he literally drives around in the toys they bought for him as compensation.
If any justice deserves to be impeached it’s him. I can’t believe they approved him in the first place. Anita Hill sends her regards.
I remember being shocked, albeit not surprised, when I read that he had quite a lot of contact with Ron de Santis.
https://americanoversight.org/email-suggests-that-supreme-co...
But the toys are so cheap. It can’t possibly be just a matter of the money, there has to be some blackmail involved. Either that or he was always self hating.
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What liberal justices do has no bearing on OP's argument at all. You must be able to recognize the fallacy?
Why are conservatives always so angry?
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It’s not an absurd scenario. The law was written specifically to allow blocking imports from a country.
The nuance is that nothing Congress passed granted to right to tax. Additionally, they did grant the power to partially block imports. Nothing says you have to enact “no imports from Japan” vs. “no imports of networking equipment from Lichtenstein.”
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> As usual, interesting discussion about the nuances of this ruling are happening on X.
@grok is this true
If you listen to the oral arguments, this issue was discussed at length.
There are two reasons for this distinction:
1. That's what congress decided. They get to determine tariffs, not the president. If the president doesn't like the law congress passed, he doesn't get to just ignore it.
2. Congress is very jealous of the right to tax and spend. They do not want to hand over this power to the president. Tariffs are taxes. If the president can just impose whatever tariffs he wants, he can raise revenue without asking congress for permission. That would grant the president enormous power to go around congress. Banning imports from a country does not bring in revenue for the president, so it doesn't pose the same risk to congress' power.
Trump has been trying to create a situation in which he can both raise revenue (through tariffs) and spend it however he wants (e.g., through DOGE's arbitrary changes to government spending) without ever asking congress. If he succeeds, the balance of power will be completely destroyed. The president will rule alone.
> discussion about the nuances of this ruling are happening on X
I'm sure they are lol.
It really isn't ill-defined at all. Both the constitution and the law allowing the president to impose tariffs for national security reasons is clear. There are just some partisan hacks on the Supreme Court.
This specific law does not allow imposing tariffs, which is the whole point of the ruling. Roberts’s opinion says that a tariff is essentially a tax, which is not what Congress clearly delegated.
Wrong law. Trump chose not to use the "impose tariffs for national security reasons" law in this case.
It’s one of the few things in the U.S. constitution that is not ill defined. Tariffs are very explicitly the prerogative of Congress.
The fact that the administration of tariffs is so much better defined than really anything else shouldn’t be surprising because tariffs is the proximate cause of the Revolutionary war.
It’s embarrassing that the 3 justices put their partisanship ahead of the clear language of the constitution and explicitly stated intentions of the founders.
Fully agree, but that's what happens when you keep piling laws on top of laws on top of laws and never go back and refactor. If I recall correctly, the case hinged on some vague wording in a semi-obscure law passed back in 1977.
The whole legal apparatus of the US doesn't want to hear that but your laws suck. They're flawed because of the political system borne of compromise with parties incapable of whipping their members to just vote in favour of a law they don't fully agree with.
Karl Popper would like a word
"In fact, [proportional representation] robs him of personal responsibility; it makes of him a voting machine rather than a thinking and feeling person. In my view, this is by itself a sufficient argument against proportional representation. For what we need in politics are individuals who can judge on their own and who are prepared to carry personal responsibility."
https://www.economist.com/democracy-in-america/2016/01/31/fr...
That's the case in any country where a parliamentary body is split so closely.
When you need every vote to get legislature to pass, because you control 51% of a chamber, backbenchers on the ideological fringe of a party, (DINOs and RINOs) have a lot of power.
When you have a majority with comfortable margins, you can care a lot less about what the Sinemas and Manchins and McCains of a party think.
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This is a global issue, laws aren't math formulas, law is interpreted, hence the need of judges.
An additional problem seems to be that this law had some congressional check that has been ruled unconstitutional since.
Old laws are often superseded or modified by newer legislation that's not novel or rare. This one wasn't because it hadn't been so roundly abused by previous presidents that it had been an issue worth taking up. It's the same with a lot of delegated powers, the flexibility and decreased response time is good when it's constrained by norms and the idea of independent agencies but a terrible idea when the supreme court has been slowly packed with little king makers in waiting wanting to invest all executive power in the President. [0]
[0] Unless that's power over the money (ie Federal Reserve) because that's a special and unique institution. (ie: they know giving the president the power over the money printer would be disastrous and they want to be racist and rich not racist and poor.)
Except that isn’t relevant at all. This Supreme Court is completely cooked. If the case was “can Trump dissolve New York as a state” you would still have 3 justices siding in his favor with some dog shit reasoning.
Read the opinions. Both are pretty reasonable. I think the dissent has a good point that a plain language interpretation of the term "regulate imports" would seem to include tariffs.
The bigger issue I think is that that statute exists in the first place. "Emergency powers" that a president can grant himself just by "declaring an emergency" on any pretense with no checks or balances is a stupid idea.
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> If the case was “can Trump dissolve New York as a state” you would still have 3 justices siding in his favor with some dog shit reasoning.
As a counter-example, if the case was, say, "can a college use race as a factor in admissions"[0], you get 3 justices siding in favor using dogshit reasoning, just from the other side of the aisle. It's a bit ridiculous to think there aren't Democrat partisan judges on the Supreme Court.
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Students_for_Fair_Admissions_v...
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It kind of shows that the USA does not have that strong means against becoming a dictatorship. George Washington probably did not think through the problem of the superrich bribing the whole system into their own use cases to be had.
They all agree. A couple of them just chose to pretend they didn't.
And that it took this long to get an answer to that question.
in the UK a similar unconstitutional behaviour by the head of government took...
from the start of the "injury":
15 days to be ruled on
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_(Miller)_v_The_Prime_Ministe...
Ah,yes, british constitutional law. In a country where no parliaments can bind its successors it means there is no constitution and the constitutional law is a polite fiction poorly held together with tradition and precedent.
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That was the fastest Supreme Court ruling in UK history though...
Similarly in the US, Watergate (Nixon impeachment) took only 16 days, and Bush v. Gore (contested election) took just 30 days to reach a Supreme Court judgement.
This is relatively fast for an issue to move through the courts.
Yes. "Relatively". We really need a fast-track process for genuinely insane nonsense to get shot down in a matter of days, not months.
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SCOTUS can move much quicker than this when they want to.
And have fairly regularly to benefit this administration:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_docket#Second_Trump_pre...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.G.G._v._Trump was vacated within days.
"On Friday, March 14, 2025, Trump signed presidential proclamation 10903, invoking the Alien Enemies Act and asserting that Tren de Aragua, a criminal organization from Venezuela, had invaded the United States. The White House did not announce that the proclamation had been signed until the afternoon of the next day."
"Very early on Saturday, March 15, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Democracy Forward filed a class action suit in the District Court for the District of Columbia on behalf of five Venezuelan men held in immigration detention… The suit was assigned to judge James Boasberg. That morning, noting the exigent circumstances, he approved a temporary restraining order for the five plaintiffs, and he ordered a 5 p.m. hearing to determine whether he would certify the class in the class action."
"On March 28, 2025, the Trump administration filed an emergency appeal with the US Supreme Court, asking it to vacate Boasberg's temporary restraining orders and to immediately allow the administration to resume deportations under the Alien Enemies Act while it considered the request to vacate. On April 7, in a per curiam decision, the court vacated Boasberg's orders…"
TL;DR: Trump signs executive order on March 14. Judge puts it on hold on March 15. Admin appeals on March 28. SCOTUS intervenes by April 7.
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>apparently so ill defined in law that 9 justices can't agree on it
That is not how the Supreme Court works. SCOTUS is a political body. Justices do one thing: cast votes. For any reason.
If they write an opinion it is merely their post hoc justification for their vote. Otherwise they do not have to explain anything. And when they do write an opinion it does not necessarily reflect the real reason for the way they voted.
Edit: Not sure why anyone is downvoting this comment. I was a trial attorney for 40+ years. If you believe what I posted is legally inaccurate, then provide a comment. But downvoting without explaining is ... just ... I don't know ... cowardly?
>downvoting without explaining is ... just ...
Like I've said before, if you can't tell whether it's a bot or a real person voting, it doesn't matter anyway.
Might as well be a bot either way.
corrective upvote made
It never occurred to me that bots are voting on threads. In the age of AI agents, that's pretty dumb of me.
In normal democracies you have multiple parties, so there is a much better chance of creating a coalition around the government and force election/impeachment if the leadership goes rouge. The US system turned out to be as fragile as it looks.
The failure of the US is not so much in judicial system (with some recent exceptions) mostly in how weak Congress has been for over a decade as executive power expands (arguably since Bush and including during Obama). The system was designed to prevent that from happening from the very beginning with various layers of checks on power, but the public keeps wanting a president to blame and fix everything. The judicial branch has been much more consistent on this matter with some recent exceptions with the Unitary executive theory becoming more popular in the courts.
Ultimately no system can't stop that if there is a societal culture that tolerates the drumbeat of authoritarianism and centralization of power.
But that's not the issue.
'can the President unilaterally impose tariffs on any country he wants anytime he wants'
No, he can't impost tariffs on any country. He can only impose tariffs on American companies willing to import from any country.
The opinion should merely read
> The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises
(which it does, and expounds upon)
Yes but in practice they delegate this power to the executive. Congress doesn’t run the IRS themselves after all
> Yes but in practice they delegate this power to the executive.
No, they do not delegate the power to lay (set) taxes to the executive, they do assign the executive the function of collecting the taxes laid by Congress.
> Congress doesn’t run the IRS themselves after all
The IRS doesn't freely set taxes, it collects the taxes set by Congress.
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They don't delegate the policymaking. Tax code is always congressionally approved, and I'm unaware of any even remote argument that changing tax policy is delegated to the executive.
OTOH enforcement of congressional policies is basically always the role of the executive, so the fact that the IRS exists and does things doesn't really impact delegation.
The thing is he usually cannot but sometimes can. The issue is around "sometimes".
Two of the justices would be happy to let Trump get away with murder. It's not that the law is ill-defined so much as a few justices are extremely partisan. Happily, a quorum of saner heads came about in this instance.
It sure is interesting how different things might be if RBG and Biden had stepped down instead of doing... whatever it was they did instead.
Yeah, in an alternative universe RBG and Sotomayor both stepped down and got replaced under a Dem admin.
It'd be interesting if Biden had taken the new doctrine of presidential immunity to heart in the last few months of his term.
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Did you actually read it? Seems unlikely. I agree with the majority but I think the dissent does make some ok points.
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Statutory Law is 50,000 pages, and that's just the beginning of everything you need to consider.
Make stupid laws, win stupid prizes.
It's almost like the legal system is designed so that you can get away with murder if you can afford enough lawyers.
Of which, only a small fraction will be relevant in any particular case.
It's kind of like pointing at any major codebase and arguing that it's "stupid" to have millions of lines of code.