No, Mr. President, the Supreme Court Was Not ‘Swayed by Foreign Interests’

By Jim Geraghty

Monday, February 23, 2026

 

“It’s my opinion that the [Supreme] Court has been swayed by foreign interests and a political movement that is far smaller than people would ever think,” President Trump fumed Friday, after the court, in a 6-3 decision, that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 does not authorize the President to impose tariffs.

 

Any other president accusing two-thirds of the Supreme Court – including two justices that he had appointed himself! – of being influenced by foreign interests would be a bombshell accusation, warranting a demand for incontrovertible evidence. But for Donald Trump, it was just another Friday. We’ve all gotten used it. We know it’s not normal, but it’s normal for him.

 

Trump’s claim that IEEPA gave him the power to impose or raise tariffs on any country to any level at any time for any reason was always a stretch, particularly considering the U.S. Constitution’s Article I, Section 8, the power to lay and collect taxes, duties, and tariffs is explicitly granted solely to Congress. My colleagues have dissected the decision in much greater detail.

 

I would only add that Trump destroyed whatever legitimate argument his administration had by exercising his powers in ludicrously capricious ways, announcing he increased tariffs on Canada because he didn’t like a television commercial and when he increased tariffs on Switzerland because he didn’t like the tone of the country’s president. We can debate what the Founding Fathers intended about the powers of the presidency, but they surely did not intend that. A lot of leaders might be tempted to exercise powers in arbitrary and capricious ways and some may do it, but Trump is unique in that he feels the need to publicly brag about doing it.

 

The oral arguments went badly for the administration; no one following the issue should have been that surprised that the Supreme Court ruled the way that it did.

 

And yet, it triggered a presidential meltdown at the White House, with the whole world watching. Besides the accusation of foreign influence, Trump raged that the Supreme Court majority is “just being fools and lapdogs for the RINOs and the radical left Democrats. And not that this should have anything at all to do with it, they’re very unpatriotic and disloyal to our Constitution.” Echoing his previous nonsense claims about his former vice president Mike Pence and the certification of the 2020 presidential election, he fumed, “they don’t want to do the right thing.”

 

In Trump’s mind, everyone who disagrees with him is always corrupt, driven by sinister motives, and likely part of some shadowy conspiracy. Everyone who agrees is always the best. Trump said, “I’d like to thank and congratulate Justices [Clarence] Thomas, [Samuel] Alito, and [Brett] Kavanaugh for their strength and wisdom and love of our country, which is right now very proud of those justices. When you read the dissenting opinions, there is no way that anyone can argue against them.” Actually, you can argue against them; that’s what the majority opinion does.

 

Trump even insisted that the court striking down the tariffs will not mean that they are no longer in effect.

 

“All of those tariffs remain. They all remain. I don’t know if you know that or not. They all remain. We’re still getting them and we will after the decision. I guess there’s nobody left to appeal to.” Indeed, Mr. President, that is why it is called the Supreme Court, not the Fairly High Court.

 

A normal president might heed the court’s decision and attempt to get Congress – with the House and Senate still controlled by Republicans! — to enact some of the tariffs he wants. Members of Congress might be surprisingly open to the notion of higher tariffs on imports from, say, China. Longtime allies like Canada or South Korea, probably not so much. Our Audrey Fahlberg reported that Congressional Repulblicans are not exactly itching to take on the issue of tariffs.

 

Either way, Trump apparently won’t even try to get Congress to enact his tariff agenda. Lacking authority under IEEPA, Trump is expected to try to reimpose them under a different provision of the law, Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. “Other alternatives will now be used to replace the ones that the court incorrectly rejected,” Trump said Friday. “We have alternatives, great alternatives.”

 

It’s all so predictable, and so tiresome. The president may have no shame, but the rest of us are embarrassed at the sight of country’s commander-in-chief throwing a tantrum on par with an angry toddler, furiously throwing out baseless accusations and whining about how unfair everything is when the judicial branch checks to see what the Constitution says and what the Founders intended. If you want to enact or raise tariffs on goods from other countries, make the case to the legislative branch.