Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump
The Supreme Court struck down President Trump's sweeping IEEPA tariffs on imports from nearly every country, ruling that the word 'regulate' in the 1977 emergency law he invoked does not include the power to impose tariffs — which are a form of taxation that only Congress has authority to levy.
The decision invalidates the tariff structure the administration had used as leverage in international trade negotiations and requires the government to refund billions of dollars collected from importers, though the President may still be able to impose similar tariffs through other, more procedurally demanding statutes.
How it got here: The Federal Circuit, sitting en banc, struck down the tariffs on summary judgment; the Supreme Court granted certiorari in both consolidated cases on an expedited basis.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Shortly after taking office, President Trump declared national emergencies over illegal drug trafficking from Canada, Mexico, and China and over large trade deficits with nearly every country in the world, invoking IEEPA to impose sweeping tariffs — 25% on most Canadian and Mexican imports, eventually 145% on Chinese goods, and at least 10% on imports from every other country. Several small businesses and twelve states challenged the tariffs, arguing that IEEPA gives the President no power to impose tariffs.
The question before the Court
Did Congress give the President the power to impose sweeping tariffs on imports through a 1977 emergency law that authorizes the President to "regulate...importation" during declared national emergencies?
The Court's answer
No — IEEPA does not give the President the power to impose tariffs on imported goods.
The law authorizes the President to "regulate...importation" of foreign property during declared emergencies, but the ordinary meaning of "regulate" has never — in any federal statute — included the power to tax. Congress always treats taxing and regulatory powers as entirely separate; when it actually delegates tariff authority, it uses words like "duty" and imposes strict rate caps, time limits, and procedural requirements, none of which appear in IEEPA. Reading "regulate" to include taxation would also partially invalidate the statute: the same IEEPA provision covers "regulate...exportation," and the Constitution expressly forbids taxing exports.
Three of the six majority justices additionally applied the major questions doctrine, which demands clear authorization before the President can claim sweeping powers through ambiguous statutory text. They found it telling that no prior President had ever read IEEPA to authorize tariffs in its 50-year history, and that the claimed authority's economic scope — projected to reduce the national deficit by $4 trillion — dwarfs any prior major-questions case.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Importers who paid billions in IEEPA tariffs are entitled to refunds, creating a complex repayment process for the Treasury. Businesses that passed tariff costs on to consumers face ongoing pricing uncertainty. Trade deals the administration says it secured using the tariffs as leverage — including agreements with China, the United Kingdom, and Japan — may now face uncertainty as well.
What changes now
The tariffs imposed under IEEPA are invalid, and importers who paid them are entitled to refunds — a process that was acknowledged at oral argument to be a likely "mess." The President may seek to reimpose similar tariffs under other statutes, such as Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act or sections of the Trade Act of 1974, but those laws require additional procedural steps IEEPA did not. The D.C. companion case is dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, as tariff challenges must be filed in the Court of International Trade.
What this does not decide
The ruling addresses only whether IEEPA authorizes tariffs; the Court expressly declined to define the full scope of IEEPA's "regulate...importation" authority for other non-tariff purposes. It also does not resolve whether the same or similar tariffs could lawfully be imposed under other statutes — including Section 232, Section 301, or Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974.
Concurrences and dissents
How the Justices voted
Majority (6). Justice Roberts (author), joined by Justice Sotomayor, Justice Kagan, Justice Gorsuch, Justice Barrett, and Justice Jackson.
Dissent (3). Justice Thomas (author), joined by Justice Alito.
Concurrence — Justice Gorsuch
Justice Gorsuch also joined the Roberts opinion's major questions doctrine sections (Parts II-A-2 and III) and wrote separately to defend those sections against critics. He traced the doctrine's roots through centuries of common-law clear-statement rules — from English corporate law through early American railroad regulation — arguing it is not a recent novelty. He pushed back against Justice Kagan's claim that ordinary statutory interpretation can substitute for the doctrine and against Justice Barrett's view that it is merely commonsense textualism, arguing it is a substantive clear-statement rule grounded in Article I's Vesting Clause that guards against executive branch aggrandizement.
Concurrence — Justice Barrett
Justice Barrett also joined the Roberts opinion's major questions doctrine sections (Parts II-A-2 and III) and wrote separately to respond to Justice Gorsuch. She maintained that the doctrine is best understood as ordinary textualism — reading statutory text in its full context, including constitutional structure and background legal conventions — rather than a separate substantive canon imposing a 'clarity tax' on Congress. She agreed with the outcome but distinguished her approach from Justice Gorsuch's, emphasizing that courts should seek the most natural reading of a statute rather than apply a dice-loading rule.
Concurrence in part — Justice Kagan
Justice Kagan agreed that IEEPA does not authorize tariffs but declined to apply the major questions doctrine, arguing ordinary statutory interpretation reaches the same result without any special thumb on the scale. Reading 'regulate...importation' in light of surrounding text, Congress's consistent pattern of using explicit terms like 'duty' when delegating tariff authority, and the fact that no prior President had ever read IEEPA to cover tariffs all lead straightforwardly to that conclusion. She distinguished past major-questions cases where, in her view, the doctrine overrode rather than discovered the best reading of a statute.
Concurrence in part — Justice Jackson
Justice Jackson agreed with the majority and joined Justice Kagan's opinion, but wrote separately to argue the Court should also consult legislative history. The Senate and House Reports accompanying IEEPA and its predecessor statute (TWEA) make clear that Congress intended the 'regulate...importation' subsection to cover 'freezing control' over foreign property transactions — not taxation. In her view, courts should give effect to what Congress actually said it was doing rather than speculating about hypothetical intent, and doing so here makes the answer straightforward.
Dissent — Justice Thomas
Justice Thomas joined the Kavanaugh dissent fully and wrote separately to argue the nondelegation doctrine places no constitutional obstacle on Congress's delegation of import-duty authority to the President. In his view, core legislative power — the only power Congress cannot delegate — covers only rules setting conditions for deprivations of life, liberty, or property. Import duties operate on a privilege (importation), not a core private right, so Congress may freely delegate that authority. He argued the power over foreign commerce was historically a royal prerogative and is not subject to ordinary nondelegation constraints.
Dissent — Justice Kavanaugh
Justice Kavanaugh argued that IEEPA clearly authorizes tariffs because 'regulate...importation' has always encompassed tariffs as a standard tool for regulating imports, alongside quotas and embargoes. He pointed to President Nixon's 1971 worldwide tariffs (upheld under TWEA's identical statutory language), the Court's unanimous 1976 Algonquin decision upholding President Ford's oil import fees under similar text, and the long history of Congress granting presidents broad tariff authority. He also argued the major questions doctrine should not apply in foreign affairs cases, where courts have traditionally read broad congressional delegations as written without placing a thumb on the scale against the President. Read the full dissent →
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Constitution gives Congress — not the President — the exclusive power to 'lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises.' Tariffs are 'very clearly a branch of the taxing power,' and the Government concedes the President has no inherent peacetime authority to impose them. The entire case therefore turns on whether IEEPA provides the needed congressional authorization.
- Three members of the majority (The Chief Justice, Justice Gorsuch, and Justice Barrett) applied the major questions doctrine — a principle requiring 'clear congressional authorization' before the President can claim sweeping powers through ambiguous statutory text. The doctrine applies with particular force when the claimed power involves the core congressional power of the purse, and the stakes here (tariffs projected to affect the entire economy) dwarfed any prior major-questions case. No President had ever invoked IEEPA to impose tariffs in its 50-year existence, which the Court found 'telling.'
- IEEPA lists nine specific presidential emergency powers — investigate, block, regulate, direct, compel, nullify, void, prevent, prohibit — but nowhere mentions tariffs or duties. By contrast, every statute in which Congress has actually delegated tariff authority uses explicit words like 'duty' and imposes strict rate caps, time limits, and procedural prerequisites. IEEPA contains none of those features, strongly suggesting Congress did not intend to hide tariff authority inside the general word 'regulate.'
- The ordinary meaning of 'regulate' has never encompassed the power to tax in any other federal statute — even the Government concedes the SEC cannot tax securities trading despite its broad authority to 'regulate' trading. Taxes and regulatory powers have always been treated as entirely separate categories (a distinction this Court traced to Gibbons v. Ogden in 1824). Reading 'regulate' to include taxation would also produce an unconstitutional result: the same IEEPA provision authorizes 'regulate...exportation,' and the Constitution expressly forbids taxing exports.
- The Court rejected the Government's counterarguments: a single 1975 lower-court ruling (Yoshida) upholding President Nixon's TWEA tariffs was not a 'well-settled' judicial definition Congress incorporated into IEEPA; tariffs are not simply a less extreme point on a spectrum between 'compel' and 'prohibit' — they raise revenue rather than restrict transactions, making them different in kind; and the 1976 Algonquin decision upholding President Ford's oil import fees under a different statute with broader grant language and explicit nearby 'duty' references was expressly 'limited' and did not control here.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Distinguishes Federal Energy Administration v. Algonquin SNG, Inc. (426 U.S. 548)
Section 232's explicit 'duties' references and broader grant language make Algonquin inapplicable to IEEPA's different statutory text.
Distinguishes Dames & Moore v. Regan (453 U.S. 654)
That case was too narrow, did not address the power to 'regulate,' and did not involve tariffs at all.
Reaffirms West Virginia v. EPA (597 U.S. 697)
Reaffirmed as the leading precedent requiring clear congressional authorization for major executive claims under ambiguous statutory text.
Reaffirms Biden v. Nebraska (600 U.S. 477)
Reaffirmed the major questions doctrine's clear-authorization requirement, which the Court applied again here.