The Supreme Court struck down President Trump’s sweeping tariffs on Friday, ruling that he overstepped his authority in imposing them on global imports. 

In a 6-3 ruling, the court wrote that Trump’s actions were unprecedented, noting that Trump’s attempt to use his “power to unilaterally impose unbounded tariffs and change them at will” overstepped the law, and that his administration’s “view would represent a transformative expansion of the President’s authority over tariff policy.” 

The ruling continued: “It is also telling that in IEEPA’s [International Emergency Economic Powers Act’s] half century of existence, no President has invoked the statute to impose any tariffs, let alone tariffs of this magnitude and scope.”

In effect, the Supreme Court ruled that, despite Trump’s assertions otherwise, the President lacks the authority to impose tariffs, and that he improperly used the premise of an “emergency” to impose them, most of which came during “Liberation Day” early last year. The government had collected somewhere in the neighborhood of $230 billion in tariff revenue between January and December 2025. 

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Critically, not all tariffs have been struck down—only the ones that Trump has imposed as an “emergency” under International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) tariff laws from the 1970s.

Will consumers get refunds for the tariffs?

Also critically, the Supreme Court did not indicate whether tariffs already paid would need to be refunded. So as it stands, it’s unclear whether anyone is due a refund for dues paid.

It could be a messy situation in terms of sorting it all out, and it appears that many legislators are trying to get ahead of that.

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