Bonus 187: Previewing the Tariffs Cases
Deep Dives
Explore related topics with these Wikipedia articles, rewritten for enjoyable reading:
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International Emergency Economic Powers Act
11 min read
IEEPA is the central statute at issue in these tariff cases. Understanding its 1977 origins, legislative history, and how it differs from its predecessor (Trading With the Enemy Act) provides essential context for evaluating the novel use of this law for tariffs.
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Major questions doctrine
15 min read
The article explicitly identifies this doctrine as central to how the Court will rule, referencing the Biden student loan case. Understanding this relatively new interpretive principle about when agencies need clear congressional authorization helps readers grasp the legal framework at stake.
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United States Court of International Trade
11 min read
This specialized federal court issued the initial ruling against the tariffs. Most readers are unfamiliar with this court's unique jurisdiction over trade disputes and its role in the federal judicial hierarchy, making it valuable context for understanding the procedural path of these cases.
Welcome back to the weekly bonus content for “One First.” Although Monday’s regular newsletter will remain free for as long as I’m able to do this, I put much of the weekly bonus issue behind a paywall as an added incentive for those who are willing and able to support the work that goes into putting this newsletter together every week. I’m grateful to those of you who are already paid subscribers, and I hope that those of you who aren’t will consider a paid subscription if and when your circumstances permit:
I thought I’d use this week’s bonus issue for something of a bifurcated preview of tomorrow’s oral argument in the tariffs cases—the first challenges to the policies of the second Trump administration that have reached the Supreme Court on plenary review (as opposed to via an emergency application). The cases are not only a major test of the President’s statutory authority (or lack thereof) under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA); they are also a referendum on the Court—including its relationship to the Trump administration and its consistency (or lack thereof) when it comes to skepticism of the executive branch’s power to undertake major economic policies without express statutory authorization under what has become known as the “major questions doctrine.”
Indeed, for as straightforward as the substantive arguments against the tariffs may appear to be, there’s a reason why the Solicitor General rushed to ensure that these cases were the Court’s first merits cases of the second Trump administration—and that reason is almost certainly reflected in Justice Kavanaugh’s oft-stated (if deeply debatable) view that the Court’s skepticism of those kinds of executive branch policies shouldn’t apply in “national security or foreign policy contexts.” Whether that’s enough to distinguish these cases from, e.g., the 2023 ruling in the Biden student loan debt forgiveness case will be one of the most important themes to look for tomorrow—and has a lot to do with why so many of the predictions for how the Court is likely to rule have been so equivocal. Mine is too; these cases ought to be easy ones. But the same could’ve been said about many of the Trump administration’s emergency applications over the past 9.5 months, and yet here we are.
In front of the paywall, I thus attempt to briefly outline what these cases are about, summarize how they got ...
This excerpt is provided for preview purposes. Full article content is available on the original publication.