Friday morning, the Supreme Court ruled against President Trump and his claimed legal power to impose the tariffs he started after returning to office. Learning Resources v. Trump was a 6-3 decision, with the die-hard conservative bloc responsible for those 3 dissenting votes.
The Chief Justice of the United States, John Roberts, wrote for the Court, with Justices Sonya Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, and Ketanji Brown Jackson joining in the result. Justice Clarence Thomas dissented, as did Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Samuel Alito. In all, their release from the Court is 170 pages long, and the exact points of overlap and division are still being worked out.
The key takeaway from the Court:
“[T]he President asserts the independent power to impose tariffs on imports from any country, of any product, at any rate, for any amount of time. Those words cannot bear such weight.”
