The Supreme Court is about to hear oral arguments in a case that sounds like a fight over toy imports but is really about the future of presidential power. On Nov. 5, in the only case being heard on that day, the justices will take up Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, and the question behind it is huge: Can a president declare a “national emergency” whenever he wants to set his own economic policy?

Beginning in early 2025, President Trump used a Cold War-era statute called the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose tariffs on everyday goods. The law was written in 1977 to let presidents act fast in actual crises — freezing terrorist assets, cutting off hostile regimes, etc. — not to micromanage trade policy or score political points. But Trump’s team argued that America’s trade imbalance with China was itself a “national emergency.”

The result: companies like Learning Resources, which makes educational toys and classroom supplies, got hammered with new tariffs that had nothing to do with any genuine emergency.

In April, the company sued. The district court

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