Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

From most accounts of the justices’ reactions, it seems they were unimpressed with the argument from Donald Trump’s lawyers about his power to impose tariffs at will. They had trouble convincing the Court that the beginning of Section 8 of the Constitution, which lays out the powers of Congress:

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises…

does not actually mean that Congress has the power to impose taxes, including tariffs.

The conservative justices, all of whom have made a cult out of their supposed adherence to the original text of the Constitution, might find they would have to bend themselves into even more knots than usual to turn the plain wording of the Constitution on its head and rule in Trump’s favor.

It’s not just integrity that would push them to rule against Trump; it’s also clearly in the interest of the business community to have a tariff regime that doesn’t shift based on the president’s feelings. Businesses making long-term investments need to know whether their inputs will be available at relatively low tariff rates or whether Trump will suddenly whack them with a 50 percent tariff, as he has done repeatedly.

This certainly is also needed in the other direction. If a steel company is making investments in the US based on a 50 percent tariff on imported steel, they need some guarantee that a........

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