Supreme Court to decide if Trump’s global tariffs are legal

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments on whether the Trump administration’s sweeping global tariffs are legal.

On Tuesday, it said it would review lower court decisions that found the president did not have the legal authority to enact the tariffs, which were brought in through an emergency economic powers act.

The justices said they would hear arguments in the case in the first week of November – an expedited timeline.

It will amount to the biggest test of Donald Trump’s presidential authority and his signature economic policy, potentially forcing the US to refund billions in tariffs.

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority has so far been amenable to temporarily instating Trump’s policies, and to his requests for emergency orders. But this case will mark the court’s first assessment of the legal basis for one of his administration’s most far-reaching policies.

Trump had invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose levies ranging from 10% to 50% on dozens of trading partners. He has separately used the emergency law to slap tariffs on China, Mexico and Canada.

Those tariffs have remained in place as the litigation proceeds, even though a federal appeals court ruled last month that Trump exceeded his authority. The power to impose taxes and tariffs continues to belong to Congress, the court ruled.

Trump had criticised the appeals court and its ruling on Truth Social, saying: “If allowed to stand, this Decision would literally destroy the United States of America.”

The initial tariff challenge was brought by a group of small businesses and a dozen states, on the basis that Trump’s invocation of IEEPA to impose the tariffs was unlawful.