Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump Revisions: 2/23/26
The Supreme Court ruled that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act — the federal emergency law President Trump used to justify sweeping import tariffs — does not authorize the President to impose tariffs at all.
The decision invalidates the legal foundation for duties reaching as high as 145 percent on some Chinese goods and affecting dozens of countries, opens the door to refund claims from importers who paid billions in duties, and raises questions about trade deals negotiated in the tariffs' shadow.
How it got here: The Federal Circuit sitting en banc and a D.C. district court both ruled the tariffs unlawful; the Supreme Court consolidated and agreed to hear both cases.
The Case in Depth
What happened
After taking office in 2025, President Trump declared national emergencies over illegal drug trafficking from Canada, Mexico, and China and over large U.S. trade deficits. Citing those emergencies, he invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and imposed sweeping import duties — reaching 145 percent on some Chinese goods — on imports from dozens of countries. Small businesses that depend on imported goods, along with several states, sued to challenge the tariffs, arguing IEEPA never gave the President that authority.
The question before the Court
Did a federal emergency law give the President the power to impose sweeping import tariffs on goods from countries around the world?
The Court's answer
No — IEEPA does not give the President the power to impose tariffs. The word "regulate" in the statute's grant to "regulate … importation" does not encompass taxation: no other federal statute grants the power to "regulate" something and thereby authorizes taxing it. When Congress has delegated tariff authority, it has always used explicit terms like "duty," set rate caps, and established procedural steps — none of which appear in IEEPA.
Three of the six majority justices also applied the major questions doctrine, which requires clear congressional authorization before a court reads a statute to grant an extraordinary executive power. The economic stakes here dwarf those of any prior major questions case, and in IEEPA's fifty-year existence no President ever invoked it to impose tariffs — confirming Congress never granted that authority.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Importers who paid billions in IEEPA tariffs may seek refunds, though the process will be complex. Consumers who absorbed higher prices will not directly benefit. The President may still seek tariffs under other federal trade laws — such as Section 232 or the Trade Act of 1974 — but those statutes require additional procedural steps before tariffs can take effect.
What changes now
The Federal Circuit's ruling that IEEPA does not authorize tariffs is affirmed; the DC district court case is sent back to be dismissed on jurisdiction grounds, since tariff challenges belong in the Court of International Trade. Importers who paid the struck-down tariffs can seek refunds — a process the parties acknowledged could be complex and involve billions of dollars. The President may seek to reimpose similar tariffs under other trade statutes, such as Section 232 or the Trade Act of 1974, though those require additional procedural steps. Trade deals facilitated by the IEEPA tariffs face legal uncertainty.
What this does not decide
The Court explicitly declined to define the full limits of what the President may do under IEEPA's "regulate … importation" language beyond imposing tariffs. The decision also does not address whether the same tariffs could lawfully be imposed under other trade statutes such as Section 232 or the Trade Act of 1974, which the dissent suggests may authorize most of them.
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 joined the full Roberts opinion, including the major questions analysis, and wrote separately to defend the doctrine's deep historical roots in corporate law, agency law, and early administrative precedents — responding to critics who call it a novel invention. He pushed back against Justice Kagan's claim that ordinary statutory interpretation reaches the same result, pointing out she read similarly broad language much more expansively in prior major questions cases. He also disagreed with Justice Barrett's view that the doctrine is merely ordinary textualism rather than a constitutional clear-statement rule grounded in Article I.
Concurrence — Justice Barrett
Justice Barrett joined the full Roberts opinion, including the major questions parts, but wrote separately to rebuff Justice Gorsuch's characterization of the doctrine as a 'substantive canon' that loads the dice against Congress on behalf of Article I. In her view, the major questions doctrine is best understood as context-sensitive ordinary textualism: background legal conventions, common sense, and constitutional structure all inform a statute's most natural meaning. She would not embrace a rigid rule requiring Congress always to use specific terms to grant major power to the executive.
Concurrence in part — Justice Kagan
Justice Kagan agreed IEEPA does not authorize tariffs but declined to join the Roberts opinion's invocation of the major questions doctrine. She argued that ordinary statutory tools — 'regulate' does not naturally mean 'tax,' Congress consistently uses explicit terms like 'duty' when granting tariff authority, and no prior President read IEEPA to allow tariffs — lead to the same result without any special clear-statement rule. She maintained her past objection that the major questions doctrine overrides rather than reveals the best reading of delegation statutes.
Concurrence in part — Justice Jackson
Justice Jackson agreed with Justice Kagan and joined her concurrence, but wrote separately to make the case for consulting legislative history. The House and Senate committee reports accompanying IEEPA and its predecessor statute, TWEA, make clear Congress intended the 'regulate … importation' language to authorize only freezing and controlling foreign property transactions — not taxing imports. She argued courts should rely on this direct evidence of congressional intent rather than speculating through the major questions lens or statutory text alone.
Dissent — Justice Thomas
Justice Thomas joined Justice Kavanaugh's dissent in full but wrote separately to argue the nondelegation doctrine — which limits Congress from handing its powers to the President — applies only to rules that deprive people of life, liberty, or property. Because importing goods is a privilege rather than a right, Congress can freely delegate tariff authority without separation-of-powers concern. The majority's reliance on Article I's vesting of the taxing power to invoke the major questions doctrine is therefore, in his view, misplaced.
Dissent — Justice Kavanaugh
Justice Kavanaugh argued IEEPA clearly authorizes tariffs because 'regulate … importation' has historically encompassed tariffs as a common tool alongside quotas and embargoes. President Nixon imposed worldwide 10 percent tariffs under identical language in IEEPA's predecessor statute, and this Court unanimously held in Algonquin (1976) that virtually synonymous language authorized monetary exactions on oil imports. Either the major questions doctrine is satisfied by this clear historical authorization, or it does not apply in the foreign affairs context. He would uphold the IEEPA tariffs. Read the full dissent →
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Constitution's Article I gives Congress alone the power to impose tariffs, which are clearly a form of taxation. The President conceded he has no inherent peacetime tariff authority, so the legal question was whether Congress delegated that power through IEEPA's authorization to 'regulate … importation.'
- IEEPA lists nine authorized actions — 'investigate, block, regulate, direct and compel, nullify, void, prevent or prohibit' — and nowhere mentions tariffs or duties. In every other statute where Congress has delegated tariff power, it has said so explicitly and imposed strict rate caps and time limits; IEEPA contains neither.
- The word 'regulate' in everyday usage and throughout the U.S. Code means to control, adjust, or subject to rules — not to tax. The government could not identify a single other statute in which a grant to 'regulate' something authorizes taxing it. Reading 'regulate' to include tariffs would also make IEEPA partly unconstitutional: the statute authorizes 'regulate … exportation,' but the Constitution expressly forbids taxing exports.
- Under the major questions doctrine — a principle requiring clear congressional authorization before a court reads a statute to give the executive an extraordinary power — the President's claim fails. The economic stakes (projected to affect trillions of dollars in trade) dwarf those of any prior major questions case, and no prior President ever used IEEPA to impose even a modest tariff, signaling Congress never intended to grant that power.
- The government's textual counterarguments were rejected: tariffs are different in kind, not merely degree, from embargoes and quotas; they operate on domestic importers to raise revenue, placing them outside the spectrum of the nine verbs in IEEPA. The neighboring statutory context confirms that all nine authorized actions involve sanctioning or controlling foreign commerce — not raising revenue.
- The government's historical and precedential arguments were also rejected. The 1975 Yoshida lower-court decision interpreting a predecessor statute was too limited to establish a well-settled meaning binding on IEEPA. Algonquin construed different statutory language in a different statute with explicit nearby duty references; Dames & Moore was acknowledged as exceedingly narrow and unrelated to tariffs. A proposed foreign-affairs exception to the major questions doctrine was rejected because the tariff power belongs exclusively to Congress regardless of foreign-affairs implications.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Limits Federal Energy Administration v. Algonquin SNG, Inc. (426 U.S. 548)
Declined to extend Algonquin's expressly limited holding to IEEPA, which uses different language without nearby duty references.
Distinguishes Dames & Moore v. Regan (453 U.S. 654)
Case was exceedingly narrow, did not address 'regulate,' and did not involve tariffs, so it offers no support here.