The Supreme Court Delivers Trump a Humiliating Gift

"A tariff is a tax. The Trump tariffs imposed in and after April 2025 were projected to raise as much as $2.3 trillion over 10 years. The Constitution assigns authority over taxes, including tariffs, to Congress. It does so for reasons that date back to English constitutional history: An executive who can tax without permission from elected representatives is on his way to becoming a tyrant."

"President Trump has had lots of ideas for how to spend the money he collected without Congress. He has offered it to farmers. He has mused about direct cash payments to taxpayers. He has speculated about creating a sovereign wealth fund to invest in companies. He has disregarded the fundamental principle that spending, like taxing, is a power the Constitution assigns to Congress, not the president."

"Now we may be on the verge of a regime-changing war against Iran. War-making is also supposed to be a congressional power-but there's no sign that Trump will allow Congress to vote on his war. In the past, the ultimate check on the president's war-making powers was Congress's power over the purse. When President Clinton intervened in the former Yugoslavia in 1999, Congress deadlocked over a vote of authorization, but approved the appropriation to pay for it, an authorization by a different name."

King Charles I attempted to tax English subjects without legislative consent in the 1630s and was executed. In the 2020s, Donald Trump imposed tariffs beginning in April 2025 that were projected to raise up to $2.3 trillion over ten years without congressional authorization. The Constitution vests taxing authority, including tariffs, in Congress to prevent executive accumulation of unaccountable financial power. Trump proposed multiple uses for tariff revenue — payments to farmers, direct cash transfers, and a sovereign wealth fund — bypassing congressional spending authority. Unchecked presidential taxation would weaken Congress's power of the purse and could enable unilateral war-making. The Supreme Court struck down the tariffs, averting a major constitutional shift.

Read at The Atlantic