Can Trump still impose tariffs on India?:Key takeaways of US Supreme Court’s ruling on Trump tariffs

In a significant setback for President Donald Trump, the Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down the administration’s sweeping reciprocal tariffs imposed after the so-called ‘Liberation Day’ announcement in April 2025. In a 6-3 decision, the court reviewed duties enacted under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, including broad reciprocal tariffs applied to nearly all US trading partners. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts said the Constitution clearly vests the power to levy taxes, including tariffs, in Congress. The framers, he wrote, did not assign any portion of that taxing authority to the executive branch. Roberts said the International Emergency Economic Powers Act makes no mention of tariffs or import duties. The court held that the law ‘does not authorize the president to impose tariffs.’ The chief justice explained that the court’s role was limited to determining whether the authority to ‘regulate … importation’ under the statute extends to the imposition of tariffs. It does not, he concluded, rejecting the statutory interpretation advanced by Trump in defense of the broad measures. Had Congress intended to grant the president the specific and extraordinary authority to levy tariffs under the law, Roberts wrote, it would have done so explicitly, as it has in other trade statutes. Citing prior Supreme Court precedent, Roberts said a president asserting sweeping tariff powers must point to clear congressional authorization. In this case, he wrote, that requirement was not met. The majority emphasized that when Congress delegates tariff authority, it does so in unmistakable terms, using words such as ‘duty,’ ‘tariff’ or ‘surcharge,’ and often specifying rate limits, duration and triggering conditions. By contrast, the emergency powers statute’s reference to regulating importation, the court said, cannot be read to encompass taxing authority. The ruling also placed the so-called major questions doctrine at the center of the dispute. Roberts, joined on that point by Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, described the case as a classic example of a claim of ‘transformative’ executive power over a core congressional function based on ambiguous statutory language. Given the economic and political stakes , including multitrillion-dollar implications and the administration’s claim that the tariffs would reduce the deficit by $4 trillion, the court said a reasonable reader would expect clear congressional authorization. It found none. Can Trump still impose tariffs on India? The decision does not prevent Trump from pursuing tariffs under alternative statutory authorities. Those laws, however, impose stricter procedural and substantive constraints. Senior administration officials have indicated they intend to explore other legal avenues to preserve elements of the broader tariff framework. Despite, the US Supreme Court’s trashing of Trump tariffs, the US President Donald Trump can still impose tariffs under different laws. Top administration officials have said they expect to keep the tariff framework in place under other authorities, though alternative laws carry greater limitations on the speed and severity of Trump’s actions. Separate taxes on steel, aluminum and auto components still remain! The ruling does not impact the separate, sector-specific duties that President Donald Trump imposed on imports such as steel, aluminium, and selected other products. Court majority did not address whether companies could get refunds
Companies have collectively paid billions in tariffs. Many companies, including the big-box warehouse chain Costco, have already lined up for refunds in court, and Kavanaugh noted the process could be complicated.
The Court says nothing today about whether, and if so how, the Government should go about returning the billions of dollars that it has collected from importers. But that process is likely to be a mess, as was acknowledged at oral argument, Justice Kavanaugh wrote in the dissent.