Trump Criticizes Supreme Court Over Tariff Ruling

President Donald Trump sharply criticized the Supreme Court on Wednesday night during a speech at the National Republican Congressional Committee fundraising dinner in Washington, D.C., accusing the court of costing the United States hundreds of billions of dollars and expressing personal disappointment in two justices he appointed.

Trump's remarks focused on a 6-3 Supreme Court ruling from February 20 that invalidated his administration's use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 to impose broad emergency tariffs on imports from dozens of countries. The decision, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, held that the law did not authorize such tariffs, noting that no previous president had invoked it for that purpose in its nearly 50-year history. Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, both Trump appointees from his first term, joined Roberts and the court's three liberal justices in the majority. Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Brett Kavanaugh dissented, with Kavanaugh arguing that the law's allowance for severing trade ties could extend to tariffs and that other statutes remained available for such measures.