Free Trade

A Year After 'Liberation Day,' Trump's Tariffs Will Never Be Legitimate Without a Vote in Congress

The Trump administration keeps trying to find legal loopholes, but the will of the people is the final judge of any major policy.

Eric Boehm | 4.2.2026 6:30 AM

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(Illustration: Midjourney/Andrew Leyden/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom)

As the Supreme Court was striking down many of the tariffs that President Donald Trump tried to impose one year ago today—on what he called "Liberation Day"—Justice Neil Gorsuch called attention to the most fundamental problem with the president's tariff regime.

"Most major decisions affecting the rights and responsibilities of the American people (including the duty to pay taxes and tariffs) are funneled through the legislative process for a reason," Gorsuch explained.

The year-long saga of Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs raised some major legal and political questions about the limits of executive power and the balance of powers. As an economic matter, the tariffs remain a foolish policy that has harmed American businesses and consumers, all while subjecting supply chains to an expensive, ever-changing tangle of regulations.

Beyond all that, however, Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs also asked a basic question about what makes government policy legitimate—a question that has been fundamental to the American experiment for nearly 250 years, ever since the founders told King George III that governments must justly derive their power "from the consent of the governed."

That is the "reason," as Gorsuch put it, that major legislative decisions are funneled through Congress.

"Yes, legislating can be hard and take time. And, yes, it can be tempting to bypass Congress when some pressing problem arises," Gorsuch wrote.........

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