President Donald Trump has lashed out at the Supreme Court of the United States after it struck down his sweeping “Liberation Day” tariffs on Nigeria and 184 other countries, describing the judgment as “deeply disappointing” and accusing members of the court of lacking courage.
The court ruled on Thursday, by a 6–3 majority, that Trump had exceeded his constitutional authority when he invoked a 1970s emergency statute to impose a 10% baseline tariff on imports from virtually every country, alongside steeper “reciprocal” duties on nations running significant trade surpluses with the US.
Speaking at the White House on Friday, Trump said: “The Supreme Court’s ruling on tariffs is deeply disappointing, and I’m ashamed of certain members of the court, absolutely ashamed, for not having the courage to do what’s right for our country.”
The tariffs, unveiled on 2 April 2025 – a date Trump branded “Liberation Day” – were justified under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), legislation designed to give presidents authority to regulate commerce during national emergencies. Under the scheme, Nigeria faced a 15% tariff, while countries such as China, Cambodia and Japan were hit with higher country-specific rates. As the trade dispute intensified, duties on some key partners rose sharply, reaching as high as 145% on Chinese imports in 2025.
In its ruling, the court held that the emergency powers statute “falls short” of granting the president authority to impose tariffs of such scale and breadth without explicit congressional approval. Delivering the lead opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts warned that accepting the administration’s position would upend the constitutional balance between Congress and the executive.
“Allowing the administration to prevail would replace the longstanding executive-legislative collaboration over trade policy with unchecked presidential policymaking,” Roberts wrote. He added that while the court claimed “no special competence in matters of economics or foreign affairs”, it was bound to enforce the constitutional limits on executive power. “When Congress grants the power to impose tariffs, it does so clearly and with careful constraints. It did neither here.”
The ruling applies specifically to the “Liberation Day” tariffs and does not automatically invalidate separate duties imposed under other statutory authorities.
The judgment leaves unanswered the thorny question of what happens to the estimated $134bn in revenue collected under the disputed tariffs. In a dissenting opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh noted that the majority said “nothing today about whether, and if so how, the government should go about returning the billions of dollars that it has collected from importers”, warning that any repayment process was “likely to be a mess”.
The legal battle, one of the most consequential economic disputes to reach the court in recent years, pitted the administration against a coalition of more than 300,000 importers and small businesses. One case brought by the New York-based wine importer V.O.S. Selections had already seen the United States Court of International Trade rule that the emergency law did not authorise the duties – a decision later upheld by an appeals court in Washington.
Trump and justice department officials argued that the tariffs were essential to America’s economic survival, framing them as a necessary response to what they described as unfair trade practices. Without tariffs, the president said, “we are a poor nation”; with them, “we are a rich nation”.
Critics countered that the administration’s interpretation of IEEPA amounted to an unprecedented assertion of power to levy what were, in effect, taxes without congressional oversight.
Legal analysts note that while the president retains other statutory tools to impose tariffs – including limited, time-bound increases of up to 15% or sector-specific measures tied to national security investigations – those authorities are narrower and more tightly constrained.
For now, the ruling stands as a forceful reassertion of Congress’s primacy in trade policy, even as it sets the stage for further political and legal battles over the future direction of US economic statecraft.
