In a long-awaited and complex decision, a 6-3 majority of the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated President Trump’s principal device for imposing tariffs during his second term as a usurpation of congressional powers. The decision left open the possibility that Trump could reimpose some tariffs based on different assertions of authority, and didn’t reach the explosive question of whether and how importers paying the illegitimate duties might secure refunds from the U.S. Treasury. But suffice it to say that this is the most important restraint imposed to date by the Court on Trump’s vast second-term assertions of raw executive power.

Six justices (Chief Justice John Roberts, joined by conservatives Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett and the Court’s three liberals, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Katanji Brown Jackson) agreed Trump had overstepped constitutional boundaries by claiming the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act authorized him to impose his “Liberation Day” reciprocal tariffs on a host of countries, along with specific tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China. But they disagreed on their reasoning.

The main opinion written by Roberts........

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