Trump Found a New Way to Tariff the World. Will the Supreme Court Stop Him Again?
- Triston Grant
- 1 day ago
- 5 min read
LAW, POWER & THE PRICE OF IMPORTS
Five months after the Supreme Court told President Donald Trump that emergency power was not a blank check for taxing imports, the tariffs are back. The legal label is different. The reach is nearly as sweeping. And the next constitutional fight has already begun.
On July 23, the Trump administration ordered new tariffs of 10 or 12.5 percent on goods from 60 trading partners, including Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom and much of Europe and Asia. The White House says the duties are designed to punish governments that fail to prohibit—or adequately police—the importation of products made with forced labor.
That moral case is difficult to argue with. The legal mechanism is much easier to question.
“The legal label is different. The reach is nearly as sweeping.”
A tariff system rebuilt after defeat
In February, the Supreme Court held in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act did not authorize the president to impose tariffs. The decision did not abolish presidential influence over trade. It did, however, reject the administration’s attempt to extract an enormous economic power from a statute that never clearly granted it.
The Constitution gives Congress the power to lay duties and regulate commerce with foreign nations. Congress may delegate portions of that authority, but the Court emphasized that a delegation carrying vast economic and political consequences must be unmistakably clear. IEEPA was not.
The administration’s new approach relies instead on Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. Unlike IEEPA, Section 301 expressly concerns trade retaliation. It allows the United States Trade Representative to investigate foreign practices that are unjustifiable, unreasonable or discriminatory and burden American commerce, and it permits responsive action—including tariffs.
That makes the government’s new case stronger than the one the Supreme Court rejected. Stronger, however, does not mean settled.
Why forced labor became the key
American law has prohibited imports produced by forced labor since 1930. Congress later made the toleration of forced labor an actionable practice under Section 301. The administration argues that countries without meaningful import bans can become conduits for goods made through coercion, disadvantaging American workers and businesses that must comply with stricter standards.
Under the new system, most goods from countries judged to have some prohibition or commitment in place face a 10 percent tariff. Other economies generally face 12.5 percent. Certain raw materials, energy products, fertilizer and goods that cannot be produced domestically in sufficient quantities are exempt.
But the structure has invited suspicion. The tariffs cover almost the entire flow of goods into the United States, while assigning broadly uniform rates to countries with very different laws, enforcement records and connections to forced-labor supply chains. Critics say that looks less like a targeted remedy and more like the previous worldwide tariff regime wearing a human-rights label.
The lawsuit arrived almost immediately
Two small American businesses—specialty spice importer Burlap & Barrel and watch retailer Collective Horology—have sued in the U.S. Court of International Trade. Their challenge argues that Section 301 authorizes responses to specific foreign practices after specific findings, not a substitute global tariff system imposed through a single sweeping theory.
The businesses are represented by the Liberty Justice Center, which was involved in the successful challenge to the administration’s earlier tariffs. They contend that the new duties will raise their costs even when their suppliers use responsible labor practices and that the government has not adequately connected each tariff to the elimination of forced labor.
That connection could become the center of the case. Section 301 gives the executive branch real discretion, but it also imposes procedures and limits. A court may ask whether the trade representative genuinely investigated identifiable burdens on U.S. commerce, whether the chosen tariffs are calibrated to those findings and whether Congress intended the statute to support action of this scale.
What Americans may actually pay
Tariffs are collected from American importers at the border. Those businesses can absorb the expense, pressure suppliers to lower prices, reorganize supply chains or pass some of the cost to consumers. In practice, the burden is usually divided, and the share reaching store shelves depends on the product and the availability of alternatives.
For shoppers, the important detail is breadth. The duties touch countries that supply clothing, footwear, electronics, household goods, food and industrial components. Even exempt products can become more expensive if packaging, transportation or machinery costs rise. Businesses also face the cost of uncertainty: pricing becomes harder when a tariff system may be revised by the White House, challenged in court or refunded months later.
The administration argues that the pressure will produce stronger forced-labor rules abroad and protect ethical producers at home. The test is whether foreign governments change their laws and enforcement—or whether American households simply receive another bill.
The constitutional question behind the price tag
This dispute is not only about tariffs. It is about how presidents respond when the judiciary rejects a major policy.
The Supreme Court’s February ruling did not say that presidents can never impose tariffs. It said that a president must point to authority Congress actually supplied. By moving from IEEPA to Section 301, the administration has done exactly what the decision appeared to require: it selected a trade statute that explicitly permits tariffs.
Yet scale matters. If Section 301 can support nearly universal tariffs whenever the executive identifies a common foreign practice, Congress’s constitutional control over duties may become largely theoretical. The government would answer that Congress wrote broad language intentionally and included forced labor among the practices subject to retaliation.
Both claims can be plausible at once. The president may have found firmer statutory ground, while still attempting to stand far beyond the boundaries Congress intended.
What happens next
The Court of International Trade will first consider whether the businesses can block or limit enforcement while the case proceeds. Any ruling is likely to be appealed, potentially returning the controversy to the same Supreme Court that invalidated the earlier tariffs.
Meanwhile, the duties will shape contracts, prices and diplomatic relationships. Trading partners may negotiate exemptions or stronger forced-labor commitments. Importers will decide whether to pay, relocate supply chains or postpone purchases. Consumers may not see a line on a receipt labeled “tariff,” but they will feel the policy through the final price.
The administration has converted a courtroom defeat into a new test of executive power. This time, the statute says tariffs. The unresolved question is whether it says tariffs this large.
Primary sources & further reading
White House memorandum, July 23, 2026 — Read source
U.S. Trade Representative fact sheet — Read source
Supreme Court opinion: Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump — Read source
Reuters reporting on the newly filed lawsuit — Read source
