#illegal tariffs

tariffs are taxes. ol boy created the tariffs, stacked $$$Billions and saved said $$$s who knows where (but not really). Now him and his boys say any type of refund would likely take years of litigation.

Mike Luckovich

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

May 28, 2025

Heather Cox Richardson

May 29, 2025

Today’s news continues yesterday’s.

Judges continue to decide cases against Trump, with a three-judge panel at the U.S. Court of International Trade ruling today that President Donald J. Trump’s sweeping “Liberation Day” tariffs are illegal.

The judges, one appointed by President Ronald Reagan, one by President Barack Obama, and one by Trump himself, noted that the U.S. Constitution gives exclusively to Congress the power to impose tariffs. In 1977, Congress passed the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, often abbreviated as IEEPA, delegating to the president the power to adjust tariffs in times of national emergency, but Trump has used that power far beyond what the Constitution will permit.

Since he took office on January 20, 2025, the judges noted, Trump “has declared several national emergencies and imposed various tariffs in response.” But the IEEPA has “meaningful limits,” the court writes, and “an unlimited delegation of tariff authority would be unconstitutional.” The court blocked all the tariffs Trump imposed under the IEEPA, thus ending Trump’s tariff spree, although the administration will appeal.

“Congress manifestly is not permitted to abdicate or to transfer to other the essential legislative functions with which it is thus vested,” the court writes.

That principle echoes far beyond tariffs, as the impoundment of funds by the “Department of Government Efficiency” takes from Congress the power to pass laws that the executive branch must faithfully execute.

Tariffs were in the news today in another way, too, as Wall Street analysts have begun to talk of “TACO trade,” short for “Trump always chickens out.” The phrase was coined earlier this month by Robert Armstrong of Financial Times and refers to Trump’s habit of threatening extraordinarily high tariffs and then backing down. Armstrong noted that investors have figured out that they can buy stocks cheaply immediately after Trump’s initial tariff announcement and then sell higher when stocks rebound after he changes his mind.

Trump’s tariff machinations—he has moved them more than 50 times since he took office—are also enriching the Trump family. Last week, Trump’s son Eric Trump joined Vietnam’s prime minister Pham Minh Chinh in a groundbreaking ceremony for a $1.5 billion luxury real estate development with three 18-hole golf courses outside the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi.

Vietnam sends more of its exports to the United States than to any other country, and after Trump hit Vietnam with 46% tariffs, top officials in Vietnam ignored the country’s own laws to ink a hurried deal with the Trumps to head the tariffs off. The Trump Organization is also cutting deals in Serbia, Indonesia, and the Middle East.

Trump’s pardons also continue to be in the news.

Today the president granted clemency to 25 people, including former Representative Michael Grimm (R-NY) and former Connecticut governor John Rowland, both of whom were convicted of tax fraud. Trump also commuted the six federal life sentences of Chicago gang leader Larry Hoover, 74, who was convicted of murder, extortion, money laundering, and drug related offenses, and from prison ran a notorious drug gang that had about 30,000 members across 31 states and brought in an estimated $100 million a year. Hoover still faces what’s left of a 200-year sentence in Illinois for murder.

While Trump’s pardons of Republicans convicted of tax crimes seem in keeping with his favoring of the wealthy, Trump’s commutation of the sentence of a gang kingpin seems an odd counterpoint to his administration’s stance on undocumented immigrants. Administration officials insist they must be able to deport migrants they allege are gang members even if they have no criminal histories. They can ignore due process, they claim, because of the dangers those individuals present to the American people. And yet Trump has now commuted the sentence of a gang leader convicted of the very sorts of crimes the administration insists justify denying to undocumented immigrants the rights guaranteed by the Constitution.

Hoover’s pardon is reminiscent of Trump’s advice to the right-wing Proud Boys in September 2020 to “stand back and stand by,” as he courted the support of vigilante groups to help him steal the 2020 election. It is in keeping with Trump’s statement that he’s “looking at” pardons for the men convicted of conspiring to kidnap Democratic Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer.

Tonight, after news broke that the judges had ruled his tariffs illegal and after he had reacted angrily to a reporter’s question about the “TACO trade,” a weakened Trump reached out to his alt-right base as he appeared determined to demonstrate dominance. He posted a meme on his social media account showing an image of himself walking toward the viewer on what appears to be a wet, nighttime city street. Pepe the Frog, a symbol of the far right, stands in the background.

Above Trump, in all capital letters, are the words: “He’s on a mission from God.” Below his feet, also in all caps, the message continues: “& nothing can stop what is coming.” This is a phrase from the right-wing QAnon conspiracy community and refers to the idea that members of the “Deep State” and its collaborators will soon be arrested.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

Same as it ever was - this cartoon was first published in 1951

Trump considered firing Noem after the fatal shootings of two protesters by federal officers in Minneapolis in January, but he held off because he didn’t want to appear as giving in to Democrats’ demands for her resignation. Thursday, Senate Majority Leader John Thune acknowledged conversations about Noem’s future had been going on for “a while.” Trump’s allies described him as “livid” and “pissed” after Noem claimed he had signed off on the massive campaign featuring Noem on a horse in front of Mt. Rushmore. Republicans are worried that if Noem mishandled taxpayer money or violated contracting rules, it will provide ammo for Democratic investigators after they win back the House in November.

Regarding Markwayne Mullet to be Noem’s replacement as Persecutor of America, Chuck Shumer posted: “I’ve been asked if I would support Sen. Mullin as Noem’s replacement. The answer is a resounding NO. The rot in DHS is deep, much deeper than any individual. It’s a question of policy not personnel. The Senate should not consider any DHS Secretary nominee until DHS and ICE are reined in.”

A majority of American voters believe that President Trump’s relationship with Iran has made the U.S. less safe, according to a new poll from Fux Snooze:, 51 percent of respondents said Trump’s war with Iran has increased risk for the U.S. 29% said Trump’s war has increased security for the U.S., while 19%t said his war has resulted in “no difference.”.

Oil prices topped $80/barrel Thursday - on their way to the dread $100/barrel that will see Unca Donnie do the TACO quadrille. The Dow lost another 1, 000 points on the news. Now that oil prices are on the rise, key officials have argued they are “doing their best to bring them down,” “the jump will only be temporary,” and “the hikes are worth a geopolitical win Iran.” Presidential blowjobber Karoline Leavitt wrote: “Rest assured, President Trump’s entire energy team, from the White House to the National Energy Dominance Council to Secretaries Wright and Bessent, have been planning for this, and they are all over it!” Asked about prices during a press briefing on Wednesday, she said Maladministration II is “wholeheartedly focused on keeping prices stable.” “It is the president’s belief and his economic team’s belief that the economy continues to be very strong. It’s robust and will be able to weather any of the temporary impacts of Operation Epic Fury.” Energy Secretary Chris Wright told Fux Snooze Wednesday that what he described as a temporary bump was a “very small price to pay” for accomplishing the administration’s goals in Iran. Dilbert shrugged off concerns over spiking gas prices Thursday, saying “If they rise, they rise.” There’s the winning ad in the Blue Tsunami this November.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Thursday that they had hit a U.S. tanker in the northern part of the Gulf and the vessel was on fire. The Guards said in their statement carried by state media that, in time of war, passage through the Strait of Hormuz will be under the control of the Islamic Republic.

Sundowning Unca Fucknutz insisted Thursday he should be involved in picking the next leader of Iran. In an interview with Axios, Trump revealed he would not accept Mojtaba Khamenei, son of the former supreme leader. “They are wasting their time. Khamenei’s son is a lightweight. Khamenei’s son is unacceptable to me. We want someone that will bring harmony and peace to Iran. have to be involved in the appointment, like with Delcy [Rodriguez] in Venezuela.” When pressed about a new Iranian leader earlier this week, Trump was unable to come up with a name.

“Most of the people we had in mind are dead.” So, with that last statement, Trump reveals all his calls for the Iranian people to rise up are the same kind of bullshit he fed the Venezuelan opposition. The only “regime change” he wants is someone corrupt enough to do a deal with him to give him money. He really is just the local mob boss, running a shakedown racket.

Rumors rumors rumors - that’s what the fog of war runs on: latest rumor going around is that the reason the U.S. Army has canceled a big training exercise. “Officials confirmed the cancellation but did not provide a public explanation, fueling concerns that the decision is linked to the escalating conflict with Iran.” Add this in to Trump’s statement in an NBC interview yesterday that he “doesn’t believe” a ground invasion is necessary - “They’ve already lost everything.” All of Trump’s military adventures have in common that they run on ambiguity that lets him figure out what story to go with to show what a “winner” he is, and that’s what appears here. The U.S. Army and the Marines together are not big enough to take over a country the size of Iran. My wildass guess: boots on the ground raises the stakes too high for a gambler like Trump. At some point before that (but perhaps after massing troops for what appears to be a coming invasion) he will declare victory and drop it all.

Uh-oh: Influential Iraqi cleric Ayatollah Jawad Al Khalisi issued a fatwa this morning calling for jihad to be waged against the U.S. and Israel across the world, Iranian state media reported; this is a sign of how the conflict might blow back onto the streets of Western cities.

Trump said he is not concerned about the jump in U.S. gasoline prices, telling CNN that the spike will be temporary even as the national average climbs to its highest level of his presidency. “That’s all right. It’ll be a short term time. It’ll go way down very quickly,” he said, insisting he has “already figured out” the situation in the Strait of Hormuz, where tanker traffic has been effectively choked off by the conflict. Put this one in the “Covid will be gone by Easter” file. According to AAA, the national average for regular gasoline rose another seven cents Friday to $3.32 a gallon, surpassing the previous high of Trump’s two terms, set in April 2025 at $3.27. The price of eggs might have gotten him into office this time, but the price of gasoline will run him out of office.

International oil prices climbed to $90 a barrel Friday morning, a roughly 24% surge since the war began, as traders grow increasingly anxious about the near shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most critical energy chokepoint. Hello, $100/gal gasoline, which is thought to be the “breaking point” when it hits domestic consumers. Yeah, gas prices are going to be Dilbert’s second “Covid crisis.” Maybe Ivermectin can be melted and used to power SUVs and pick’m up trucks?? I remember all the moans I heard back in Maladministration I when the Yuppies were trying to fill the 80-gallon tanks on their Suburbans.

United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said Friday that the cost of jet fuel has surged 58 percent since the start of the war, a jump he described as one of the most significant pressures now facing the industry. Fuel is typically the largest or second largest operating expense for major carriers, and the rapid rise is already reshaping financial forecasts across the sector. Kirby said the airline has been absorbing the increases so far, but warned that fares may soon rise if fuel prices remain elevated.

European leaders reaffirmed their commitment to diplomacy on Friday as the conflict involving Iran, the United States and Israel deepens, stressing that regional stability and Europe’s own security remain at stake. Leaders of the UK, France, Germany and Italy held talks the same day, agreeing that “intensive diplomacy and close military coordination” will be essential in the coming hours, according to a Downing Street readout. Officials across Europe have grown increasingly concerned that the conflict could spill over into a broader regional collapse.

Democratic Rep. Brendan Boyle, ranking member of the House Budget Committee, has sent a letter to the CBO requesting an estimate of the war’s cost, including its domestic economic impact. Congress is also expecting to receive a request from Maladministration II to cover the price of the conflict, on top of the roughly $1 trillion the Defense Department received last year. The department has not indicated the size of the request, but estimates are it will be around $50 billion.

The TrumpDOJ is seeking to empower Pam Bondi to suspend state bar ethics investigations into current and former DOJ lawyers, step outside attorneys quickly criticized as an illegal intervention into state-run processes. The proposed regulation, posted in the Federal Register Wednesday, would aim to halt state-level ethics proceedings against DOJ lawyers while the department conducts its own review, which would diminish local bar associations’ power. It comes as Bondi, members of her leadership team, and prosecutors involved in immigration matters face complaints probing DOJ misconduct in states where they’re licensed to practice law. The department unveiled the unexpected policy by saying the change is necessary in light of the “weaponization” of the bar complaint process. If finalized after a public comment period, “whenever a third party files a bar complaint alleging that a current or former Department attorney violated an ethics rule while engaging in that attorney’s duties for the Department, or whenever bar disciplinary authorities open an investigation into such allegations,” the attorney general “will have the right to review the complaint and the allegations in the first instance.”

Beauty pageant also-ran Lindsey Halligan, the ex-U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia who was hand-picked by President Trump to prosecute his political adversaries, is under investigation by Florida’s bar, a letter sent by the organization confirms. The letter was sent last month to the executive director of Campaign for Accountability, a watchdog group that filed complaints against Halligan in Florida and Virginia. Bar counsel Carlos Leon wrote in the Feb. 4 letter: “We are aware of these developments and have been monitoring them closely. We already have an investigation pending.” Another one bites the dest, believing to the end that Unca Fucknutz would take care of them.

Not a single refugee who isn’t a White South African Nazi has been legally resettled in the United States since October, according to the State Department’s most recent arrivals report. The report, published last month, shows that from the start of October 2025 and the end of January 2026, just 1,651 people were admitted under the US Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP), which allows those fearing persecution based on race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or social group to apply for refuge in the United States. Aside from just three, every single one of them was from South Africa. Three Afghan refugees were also reported to have been settled in Colorado in November. But since then, their admission has been indefinitely suspended, and those who have entered may be at risk of deportation.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said Thursday that the company would fight the Pentagon’s supply chain risk designation in court, while suggesting the “vast majority” of its customers would be unaffected. The Pentagon confirmed the designation, which SECDRUNK Kegstand announced last week, in a letter to the AI firm Wednesday, Amodei noted. “As we wrote on Friday, we do not believe this action is legally sound, and we see no choice but to challenge it in court,” the Anthropic CEO wrote in a statement Thursday night. The supply chain risk designation, which has typically been reserved for foreign adversaries, restricts defense contractors from using the company’s products. However, despite Hegseth’s initial comments, Anthropic has argued the restrictions cannot bar anyone who does business with the military from doing business with the AI firm. The company has argued for two restrictions on the military’s use of its technology: mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous lethal weapons. The Defense Department, by contrast, has sought language that would allow it to use the firm’s AI tools for “all lawful purposes.”

[..]

Under pressure, the TrumpDOJ released more of the Epstein Files, including the three files relating to the woman who said Trump raped her at age 13. NPR reports 16 new pages covering the three additional interview summaries have now been added, along with a two-page intake form from the initial call to the FBI. 37 pages remain missing, including interview notes, a law-enforcement report, and license records. Chris Hayes noted last night that what is there is sufficient for a good investigative reporter to get at the real truth. Politically, the damage is already spreading beyond the underlying allegation. Reuters reported lawmakers were reviewing whether DOJ had improperly withheld materials; the handling of the release is now a broader oversight problem for Bondi and Blanche.

Wednesday, Maladministration II got told by the Court of International Trade to cought up the $130 billion they stole with the illegal tariffs. After the Supreme court decision that he couldn’t use IEEPA, he claimed he was going to impose a worldwide 15% tariff under Section 122 - which the TrumpDOJ argued in court last year was “not appropriate authority” and was why they were using IEEPA. Thursday, 20 Democratic state Attorneys General filed a lawsuit to stop these tariffs on grounds they are illegal. Here we go again. The standard Trump Response: keep arguing and fighting to the last ditch, and maybe further than that.

In Colorado, the state prosecutor, state attorney general, secretary of state, and a U.S. senator all reacted vehemently against Democratic Gov. Jared Polis’ signal that he will commute the sentence of election denier Tina Peters. Polis is just another spineless Run Up The White Flag Dim-o-crap.

For the first time in YouGov polling history, 50% of Americans support abolishing ICE. Even 23% of Republicans want ICE gone—another record. The regime built its entire brand on ICE, and now the American people are telling them no thanks.

I miss the days when "tariffs" was just something you saw written on a giant hot dog in an old-timey political cartoon

Heather Cox Richardson 

February 20, 2026 (Friday)

Today, in a 6–3 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court found that President Donald J. Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs were unconstitutional.

Shortly after he took office, Trump declared that two things—the influx of illegal drugs from Canada, Mexico, and China, and the country’s “large and persistent” trade deficits—constituted national emergencies. Under these emergency declarations, he claimed the authority to raise tariffs under the 1997 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).

The U.S. Constitution is clear that Congress, and Congress alone, has the authority to tax the American people, and tariffs are taxes. But with the IEEPA, Congress gave the president the power to respond quickly to an “unusual and extraordinary threat…to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States” that originates “in whole or substantial part outside the United States.” The law specifies that any authority granted to the president “may only be exercised to deal with an unusual and extraordinary threat with respect to which a national emergency has been declared for purposes of this chapter and may not be exercised for any other purpose.”

Although the law does not mention tariffs, Trump claimed the authority under IEEPA to impose a sweeping new tariff system that upended the free trade principles that have underpinned the economy of the United States and its allies and partners since World War II.

Trump promised his supporters that foreign countries would pay the tariffs, but in fact, studies have reinforced what economists always maintained: the cost of tariffs falls on businesses and consumers in the U.S. Similarly, Trump promised his tariffs would make the economy boom and bring back manufacturing jobs, the latest report on U.S. economic growth in the fourth quarter of last year, released just this morning, shows that tariffs and the government shutdown slowed growth to 1.4%, bringing overall growth down from 2.8% in 2024 to 2.2% in 2025.

While the U.S. added 1.46 million jobs in 2024, it added only 181,000 in 2025. Manufacturing lost about 108,000 jobs in 2025.

Trump also used tariffs to justify his extension of the 2017 tax cuts on the wealthy and corporations, insisting that fees on foreign countries would fund the U.S. government and cut the deficit.

It was always clear, though, that Trump’s reliance on tariffs was mostly about seizing power. Trump’s advisors appear to be using the strategy of Nazi political theorist Carl Schmitt, who opposed liberal democracy, in which the state enables individuals to determine their own fate. Instead, he argued that true democracy erases individual self-determination by making the mass of people one with the state and exercising their will through state power. That uniformity requires getting rid of opposition. Schmitt theorized that politics is simply about dividing people into friends and enemies and using the power of the state to crush enemies.

Much of Schmitt’s philosophy centered around the idea that in a nation that is based in a constitution and the rule of law, power belongs to the man who can exploit emergencies that create exceptions to the constitutional order, enabling him to exercise power without regard to the law. Trump—who almost certainly has not read Schmitt himself—asserted this view on August 26, 2025: “I have the right to do anything I want to do. I’m the president of the United States. If I think our country’s in danger—and it is in danger in the cities—I can do it.”

Trump should be able to get his agenda passed according to the normal constitutional order, since the Republicans have control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Instead, he has operated under emergency powers. Since he took office thirteen months ago, Trump has declared at least nine national emergencies and one “crime emergency” in Washington, D.C. Since 1981, presidents have declared on average about seven national emergencies per four-year term.

Having declared his power to do whatever he wished with tariffs, Trump used them for his own ends in both foreign policy and economics, punishing countries for enforcing the law against his allies—like Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, jailed after trying to overthrow the elected government—or strong-arming countries like Vietnam into giving real estate deals to his family.

Trump changed tariff rates apparently on his own whim. As Chief Justice John Roberts noted, a month after imposing a 10% additional tariff on Chinese goods, he increased the rate to 20%. A month later, he removed the legal exemption for Chinese goods under $800. Less than a week after imposing reciprocal tariffs, he increased the rate on Chinese goods from 34% to 84%. The very next day, he jacked them up to 125%. That meant the total tariff rate on Chinese goods was 145%.

Trump’s tariffs destabilized the global economy, while the wild instability made it impossible for U.S. companies to plan. Increasingly, other countries have simply cut the U.S. out of their trade deals, while U.S. growth has slowed. The Tax Foundation estimated that Trump’s tariffs cost the average American household about $1,000 in 2025. They projected that cost to be $1,300 in 2026. Congress’s Joint Economic Committee–Minority, made up of Democrats, estimates that number to be low. They say the actual cost has been $1,700 per household.

It was a huge tax increase on the American people, imposed without reference at all to Congress, which is the only government body with the power to raise taxes. Now the Supreme Court has said that the chaos and cost of Trump’s tariffs was for nothing. Trump’s claim of authority to levy tariffs under IEEPA was unconstitutional all along.

Simon Rosenberg of the Hopium Chronicles wrote of the decision: “[A]ll this reinforces that the tariffs were arguably both the most reckless act and the greatest abuse of power by a President in American history.” He added: “In most democracies Trump’s reckless and wild abuse of power through his tariffs would cause the government to fall or the leader to be removed. The imposition of these tariffs against the will of Congress, the courts, our allies, and the American people. It’s clear grounds for removal.”

As Ryan Goodman of Just Security pointed out, the justices in the majority expressed “deep skepticism of claims to open-ended emergency powers,” although it is not clear that they will recognize the same problem in other contexts.

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo noted that “today’s decision is…an indictment of the Court.” In August 2025, almost six months ago, the Supreme Court stayed a lower court decision striking down the tariffs as illegal. Now “[t]hese tariffs have been in effect for almost a year. They have upended whole sectors of the U.S. and global economies. The fact that a president can illegally exercise such powers for so long and with such great consequences for almost a year means we’re not living in a functional constitutional system. If the Constitution allows untrammeled and dictatorial powers for almost one year, massive dictator mulligans, then there is no Constitution.” Marshall said there is no future for the American republic without thoroughly reforming the court of its current corruption.

Trump did not take news of the court’s decision calmly. Trump was at a private breakfast with governors at the White House when an aide handed him a note about the decision. A source told Reuters White House reporter Jarrett Renshaw that Trump was “visibly frustrated” and said he “had to do something about the courts.” Then he left the room.

Three hours later, Trump delivered a public response in which he lambasted the justices in the majority, including two of the three on the court he nominated. He said the justices appointed by Democrats are “against anything that makes America, strong, healthy and great again. They also are a, frankly, disgrace to our nation, those justices.” The Republicans in the majority are “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.” As a whole, he claimed, “the court has been swayed by foreign interests and a political movement that is far smaller than people would ever think.” He asserted that “obnoxious, ignorant and loud” people were frightening the justices to keep them from doing what was right.

Trump heaped praise on his appointee Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who joined Justice Samuel Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas in the minority.

Trump continued in this vein for forty-five minutes, ranting that he had created a booming economy that “all of the Nobel Prize winners in economics” had said was impossible. He returned to his fantasy identity as peacemaker, reiterating that he had “settled eight wars, whether you like it or not,” saving 35 million lives, and claimed tariffs had made that possible. He claimed that he “was very modest in my ask of other countries and businesses” because he didn’t want to sway the court. He said: “I want to be a good boy.”

He told reporters that there were other ways to impose tariffs and that he intended to do so. Indeed, he said, “the Supreme Court’s decision today made a president’s ability to both regulate trade and impose tariffs more powerful and more crystal clear, rather than less. I don’t think they meant that. I’m sure they didn’t. It’s terrible…. There will no longer be any doubt, and the income coming in and the protection of our companies and country will actually increase because of this decision. I don’t think the court meant that, but it’s the way it is.”

Trump’s tariffs are unpopular enough that he could have interpreted the Supreme Court decision outlawing them as providential, but instead he vowed to sign an order imposing 10% global tariffs under a law that permits him to do so for 150 days. When a reporter asked him why he couldn’t “just work with Congress to come up with a plan to push tariffs,” Trump answered: “I don’t have to. I have the right to do tariffs, and I've always had the right to do tariffs. And it’s all been approved by Congress, so there's no reason to do it.”

Tonight Trump posted on social media that he had signed an order to impose “a Global 10% Tariff on all Countries, which will be effective almost immediately.” Economist Justin Wolfers asked: “What problem is Trump's new global 10% tariff meant to solve? If it's about leverage, ask: How much leverage do you get from a tariff that disappears in 150 days? If it's onshoring: Who builds new factories based on tariff[s] that disappear before the factory is built? It's a tax. That's all it is.”

The court did not say anything about how the government should remedy the economic dislocation the tariffs caused or, for that matter, return the billions of dollars it took illegally. Simon Rosenberg wrote that “Democrats can now credibly call for the repeal of the Trump tax cuts and the clawing back of the additional ICE funding as a way of offsetting the revenue loss from the ending of the illegal tariffs.”

But Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told an interviewer: “I got a feeling the American people won’t see” refunds. Nonetheless, Representatives Steven Horsford (D-NV) and Janelle Bynum (D-OR) immediately introduced a bill to require the Trump administration to refund tariff revenue to U.S. businesses within 90 days.

This afternoon, Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker sent an invoice to Trump, charging him $8,679,261,600, or $1,700 for every family in Illinois, as “reimbursement owed to the Illinois families for illegally imposed tariffs.” It said: “Illinois families paid the price for illegal tariffs—at the grocery store, at the hardware store, and around the kitchen table. Tariffs are taxes and working families were the ones who paid them. Illinois families paid the bill. Time for Trump to pay us back.”

In a cover letter, Pritzker said: “Your tariff taxes wreaked havoc on farmers, enraged our allies, and sent grocery prices through the roof. This morning, your hand-picked Supreme Court Justices notified you that they are unconstitutional…. This letter and the attached invoice stand as an official notice that compensation is owed to the people of Illinois, and if you do not comply we will pursue further action.”

Newsweek

By Dan Gooding and Gabe Whisnant

Feb.20 2026

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch acknowledged Friday that the court’s decision to strike down some of President Donald Trump’s global tariffs would be “disappointing” to some but said the ruling reaffirmed a core constitutional principle that major economic decisions belong to Congress, not the president acting alone.

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts said the Constitution “very clearly” gives Congress the power to impose taxes, including tariffs. The group said Trump had overreached in his presidential authority by unilaterally imposing tariffs under national emergency powers. 

The decision was focused on tariffs enacted through the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), and did not cover all tariffs imposed over the past year. 

Roberts was joined by fellow conservative justices Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, along with all three liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Conservative Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh dissented.

Writing separately in the case, Gorsuch framed the outcome as a defense of the legislative process, even as it dealt a sharp blow to one of Trump’s signature economic policies.

“For those who think it important for the Nation to impose more tariffs, I understand that today’s decision will be disappointing,” Gorsuch wrote, arguing that taxes and tariffs are deliberately routed through Congress to ensure deliberation, compromise and durability. 

While the ruling immediately upended Trump’s sweeping trade actions, Gorsuch suggested that those frustrated by the outcome would ultimately come to appreciate the legislative process as “the bulwark of liberty it is.”