On Friday, the Supreme Court struck down the tariffs that President Donald Trump had imposed on nearly every country through an emergency powers law.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump doesn’t appear to be backing down from his plan to issue $2,000 rebate checks from the tariffs revenue, but a Supreme Court ruling against his tariff policy has thrown an extra wrench in those plans.
On Friday, the Supreme Court struck down the tariffs that Trump had imposed on nearly every country using an emergency powers law. Since the ruling, Trump has said he will use a different, albeit more limited, legal authority and expressed interest in a global tariff of 15%, up from the 10% he initially announced.
The Supreme Court ruling did not address what happens to the funds that have already been collected from tariffs.
Will Trump send out $2,000 tariff checks?
The president has pledged to send one-time $2,000 rebate checks to many Americans from tariff revenue.
In January, the president gave a new timeline on when those payments could arrive for Americans, giving it “toward the end of the year.” He previously stated that the $2,000 checks would arrive by mid-2026.
While Trump has said these proposed checks would arrive in 2026, several administration officials have cautioned that the president’s proposal for tariff checks would require congressional approval.
The likelihood of it clearing Congress seems slim, though, with members from both sides of the aisle sharing their concerns about the plan.
Several Republican senators have shot down the tariff rebate check plan publicly, calling the proposal everything from “a bad idea” to “insane.” Most conservatives instead want to use any tariff revenue to pay down the massive national debt.
With the Supreme Court’s latest ruling, the idea of tariff rebate checks seems more distant than ever. The White House has not commented on the status of the president’s proposal.
After the ruling, Trump quickly signed an executive order citing the Trade Act of 1974, which grants the president the power to impose temporary import taxes when there are “large and serious United States balance-of-payments deficits” or other international payment problems. The authority has never been used and therefore never tested in court.
Tariffs have been central to Trump’s economic policies, which he has said address a host of ills, from reviving trade imbalances and reviving U.S. manufacturing to forcing other nations to action, whether it be stepping up efforts to combat drug trafficking or ceasing hostilities with each other.
The ruling will most likely prolong chaos over international trade through the midterm elections, with much unknown about Trump’s next steps and whether roughly $175 billion in import taxes that the Supreme Court struck down will be refunded.
Who would get $2,000 checks from Trump?
Several officials, including Trump, have said the checks would be for “working families” and for “moderate” and “middle” income families. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said the checks would have income limits.
Trump has boasted that “trillions of dollars” are coming into the U.S. from tariffs, but budget experts say the math doesn’t quite add up.
This isn’t the first time Trump has pushed the idea of a payout for Americans due to his policies. In February, the Republican president said he liked the idea of giving some of the savings from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, back to Americans as a dividend.
The plan never went anywhere, and Musk left the DOGE office months after.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.