Despite its reluctance, tariff setting is the job of Congress — not Trump

Published February 27, 2026 1:00pm ET



The Supreme Court’s recent ruling against the legality of President Donald Trump’s tariffs was fundamentally about the rule of law and Constitutional intent.

While the ruling may have holed the president’s economic policy below the waterline, that’s because his tariff-setting spree, represented under the auspices of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, was an extraordinary and unprecedented power grab by the executive of precisely the sort the Constitution was designed to prevent.

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