Number Six
Chief Exit Officer (CEO)
Vice President Vance condemned the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down a majority of President Trump’s sweeping tariffs on Friday.
“Today, the Supreme Court decided that Congress, despite giving the president the ability to ‘regulate imports’, didn’t actually mean it,” Vance posted on the social platform X. “This is lawlessness from the Court, plain and simple. And its only effect will be to make it harder for the president to protect American industries and supply chain resiliency.”
The vice president pointed to a “wide range of other tariff powers” still available to the president.
Vance’s statement echoed Trump’s remarks at the White House on Friday afternoon, when he said he was “ashamed of certain members of the court.”
A majority ruled against the Trump administration’s decision to use the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose steep tariffs on countries across the globe. The emergency measure grants the U.S. president the ability to place regulations on imports in response to “unusual and extraordinary” threats.
Two of the six justices in the majority opinion — Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch — were appointed by Trump.
The president criticized them in his Friday remarks to the press.
“I don’t want to say whether I regret nominating them. I think their decision was terrible,” Trump said. “I think it’s an embarrassment to their families.”
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have expressed discontent with the Trump administration’s use of IEEPA to impose tariffs, pointing to Congress’ constitutional authority over federal taxation. A resolution calling for the cessation of Trump’s tariffs passed in the Senate last fall with bipartisan support.
Recent polling indicated that most Americans felt similarly, with 67 percent of respondents expressing their support for the Supreme Court to overturn these policies in a February survey.
A recent report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York indicated that U.S. businesses and consumers took on about 90 percent of the costs of these tariffs, despite claims from the White House that foreign countries would shoulder the majority of the financial burden.
Several Republican lawmakers have come out in support of the court’s decision Friday. Kentucky’s GOP Sens. Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell — who both voted in favor of passing the Senate resolution last October — commended the ruling.
Paul, who sponsored the resolution, called the ruling a “defense of our Republic” in a post on X.
McConnell said in a statement that the court’s decision leaves “no room for doubt” on the issue of Congress’s constitutional authority over tariffs.
“Congress’ role in trade policy, as I have warned repeatedly, is not an inconvenience to avoid,” McConnell said. “If the executive would like to enact trade policies that impact American producers and consumers, its path forward is crystal clear: convince their representatives under Article 1.”
