Category: Tampa Bay, Florida Local News

Hours after the Supreme Court struck down many of President Donald Trump’s far-reaching tariffs in a 6-3 decision, the president said Friday he plans to sign an excecutive order imposing 10% global import duties “over and above our normal tariffs already being charged,” citing a different statute. 

During a news conference at the White House after the ruling, Trump quoted Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s dissenting opinion as the president justified pressing on with his tariffs. “Although I firmly disagree with the Court’s holding today, the decision might not substantially constrain a President’s ability to order tariffs going forward,” Kavanaugh wrote.

The country’s top court issued its long-awaited decision Friday, ruling the president does not have the authority to impose sweeping tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, passed in 1977.

“IEEPA’s grant of authority to ‘regulate . . . importation’ falls short. IEEPA contains no reference to tariffs or duties,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion. “The Government points to no statute in which Congress used the word ‘regulate’ to authorize taxation. And until now no President has read IEEPA to confer such power.” 

Justices Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson sided with Roberts in invalidating many of Trump’s import taxes levied on U.S. global trading partners. Three justices –– Kavanaugh, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito –– dissented from the majority opinion.

“We claim no special competence in matters of economics or foreign affairs. We claim only, as we must, the limited role assigned to us by Article III of the Constitution. Fulfilling that role, we hold that IEEPA does not authorize the President to impose tariffs,” the opinion concluded.

In his news conference, Trump called the ruling “deeply disappointing” and condemned the Supreme Court majority who struck down the IEEPA duties, accusing the justices of being “swayed by foreign interests and a political movement that is far smaller than people would ever think.”

Trump pledged to employ “very powerful alternatives.”

“We’ll take in more money, and we’ll be a lot stronger for it,” he said. “We’re taking in hundreds of billions of dollars. We’ll continue to do so.”

Separate tariffs that Trump had previously imposed, including ones on goods such as aluminum, steel, lumber and automobiles through Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, were not part of the case considered by the Supreme Court and still remain in place. During his remarks Friday, the president also highlighted several additional methods to levy tariffs, including Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, which permits import duties of up to 15% to be imposed for 150 days. 

“I can do anything I want with IEEPA, anything. I just can’t charge anybody for it,” he said. “It’s ridiculous.”

In November, the nation’s top court heard oral arguments for a consolidated challenge from several Democratic-led states and a handful of small businesses over the president’s “Liberation Day” tariffs, as well as ones he levied on China, Mexico and Canada over what his administration described as “the flow of contraband drugs like fentanyl to the United States.” 

In both, Trump contended that the situations constituted national emergencies and relied on IEEPA as the justification for imposing tariffs. 

During nearly three hours of oral arguments before the justices late last year, attorneys for the plaintiffs insisted that only Congress has the power to tax and argued that tariffs are not included in the scope of IEEPA. They were followed by U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer, who contended that tariffs fell under the president’s authority to “regulate foreign commerce.”

Liberal and some conservative justices at the time seemed to express skepticism about the Trump administration’s arguments.

One of the plaintiffs in the case –– Rick Woldenberg, CEO of Learning Resources and hand2mind –– praised the ruling in a statement Friday.

“With today’s decision, we will continue to pursue our mission through innovation, investment, and hard work supporting educators, families, and children around the world, without the burden of unlawful tariffs,” Woldenberg wrote.

What will happen with the tariffs that have been paid?

Barrett had asked during oral arguments about logistics of giving refunds to importers if the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs and remarked that the process may be “a mess.”

During that exchange, Neal Katyal, who was representing small-business plaintiffs, contended that only the companies that were party to the suit would be entitled to receive their money back, and other businesses would have to individually seek repayment.

To protect their right to request refunds, retail giant Costco and hundreds of other businesses have launched legal challenges. 

It was not immediately clear from the ruling what would happen, regarding potential refunds.

Kavanaugh in his dissent Friday echoed Barrett’s comments, writing that the U.S. “may be required to refund billions of dollars to importers who paid the IEEPA tariffs, even though some importers may have already passed on costs to consumers or others.” 

“As was acknowledged at oral argument, the refund process is likely to be a ‘mess,’” Kavanaugh contended, adding that the Supreme Court’s ruling could also “generate uncertainty” about trade agreements Trump reached with other countries to lower the import duties. 

On Friday, Trump criticized the Supreme Court majority for not addressing the issue in its opinion, suggesting that the refunds will be subject to a lengthy legal fight.

“We’ll end up being in court for the next five years,” the president said.

A coalition of roughly 800 small businesses, We Pay the Tariffs, called on the federal government to expeditiously refund tariff payments to U.S. companies. 

“But a legal victory is meaningless without actual relief for the businesses that paid these tariffs,” the group wrote in a statement. “The administration’s only responsible course of action now is to establish a fast, efficient, and automatic refund process that returns tariff money to the businesses that paid it.” 

Customs and Border Protection estimated in December it collected more than $200 billion from new tariffs last year. Of that figure, approximately $133.5 billion was brought in from IEEPA import duties through Dec. 14, 2025, but that number is believed to have ticked up in the weeks since. Reuters reported Friday that more than $175 billion in tariffs may need to be refunded if the Supreme Court rules against Trump, citing an estimate from Penn-Wharton Budget Model economists.

Trump had previously speculated that the amount would be even higher.

“The actual numbers that we would have to pay back if, for any reason, the Supreme Court were to rule against the United States of America on Tariffs, would be many Hundreds of Billions of Dollars,” he said Jan. 12 on social media. 

In a statement, the Committee For a Responsible Federal Budget called on lawmakers to address the lost tariff revenue.

“With the national debt already the size of the entire U.S. economy and interest on the debt costing more than $1 trillion this year, this is very bad news,” the nonpartisan think tank wrote. “Congress should work quickly to fill that hole.”

Before Trump’s tariffs took effect last year, the U.S. saw a surge of imports of foreign goods in the first few months. The trade-gap then narrowed for most of the rest of the year, the Commerce Department reported Thursday. 

But, while the overall trade deficit of goods and services fell to $901 billion last year, the gap between the amount of goods imported versus exported rose to a record-high $1.24 trillion in 2025, the report found, meaning the U.S. ultimately brought in more foreign products than American exporters sent overseas.