(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas sharply criticized their colleagues in dissent after the court struck down President Donald Trump’s use of an emergency law to impose tariffs on virtually every foreign country.
In a 6-3 decision, the majority ruled Friday that Trump exceeded his executive authority by using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose major tariffs.
The court bizarrely said the law allows the president to regulate imports during an emergency but does not authorize the imposition of tariffs.
Thomas and Kavanaugh disagreed vehemently.
“Since the 1790s, Congress has consistently delegated to the President power over foreign commerce, including the power to impose duties on imports,” Thomas wrote.
“This Court has consistently upheld Congress’s delegation of power over foreign commerce, including the power to impose duties on imports,” he added, arguing that the IEEPA does give the president authority to regulate foreign commerce.
Kavanaugh echoed Thomas in a separate dissent, calling the majority’s ruling “illogical.”
He accused the majority of cherry-picking scenarios in which Trump may use the IEEPA to regulate commerce.
“If quotas and embargoes are a means to regulate importation, how are tariffs not a means to regulate importation? Nothing in the text supports such an illogical distinction,” Kavanaugh wrote.
The conservative justice cited the court’s ruling in Biden v. Missouri, in which the majority upheld then-President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for millions of healthcare workers.
“The executive action there, too, was undoubtedly major. But the Court upheld the Government’s vaccine mandate based on a general statutory authorization for HHS to impose safety requirements for healthcare facilities—notwithstanding the lack of explicit statutory reference to vaccines,” he added.
Chief Justice John Roberts authored the majority opinion, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Reacting to the ruling, Trump said he was “ashamed of certain Members of the Court for not having the Courage to do what is right for our country.”
He later added that “new TARIFFS, totally tested and accepted as Law, are on their way.”
