On February 20, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled 6 to 3 that President Trump’s tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act were unlawful. Chief Justice Roberts wrote the opinion. The ruling struck down both the Reciprocal Tariffs first imposed in April 2025 and the separate tariffs tied to fentanyl trafficking. The Court found that IEEPA’s power to regulate importation does not include the power to impose tariffs, which the Constitution reserves for Congress.
Within hours of the ruling, Trump signed a new proclamation imposing a 10 percent global tariff under a different law, Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. It took effect February 24, 2026, and was set to run 150 days, through July 24, 2026. The legal basis changed. The tariff did not.
The Second Court Said the Same Thing
On May 7, 2026, the U.S. Court of International Trade ruled 2 to 1 that the Section 122 tariffs were also unlawful. The court found that the economic conditions Trump cited did not meet the statute’s requirement of a large and serious balance of payments deficit. In plain terms: the legal justification did not hold up a second time.
But the relief applied only to the two private companies and the State of Washington that had filed the lawsuit. The court ordered refunds with interest for those specific plaintiffs. It did not order the government to stop collecting the tariff from anyone else. The Justice Department appealed on May 12, and the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a stay while it considers the case. The tariff that a court found unlawful is still being collected from every importer who did not personally sue.
What Stayed in Place the Whole Time
Neither ruling touched two other tariff authorities the administration has leaned on throughout: Section 232, which covers national security, and Section 301, which covers trade violations. On April 2, 2026, Trump used Section 232 to update tariffs on steel, aluminum, and copper, setting a 25 percent rate on derivative products and a 15 percent rate on certain metal-intensive industrial and electrical grid equipment through 2027. Those tariffs were never in legal question. They simply did not need IEEPA or Section 122 to exist.
What It Has Cost So Far
The Penn Wharton Budget Model estimates the IEEPA tariffs alone collected roughly 175 to 179 billion dollars before the Supreme Court struck them down. Congressional Democrats released a study estimating the broader tariff program will cost the average American household 2,512 dollars in 2026, up 44 percent from 1,745 dollars the year before. Most of the households paying that bill are not plaintiffs in any lawsuit. They have no path to the refund with interest that the Court of International Trade ordered for the two companies and the state that sued. They paid the same unlawful tariff. They get nothing back.
The Pattern
Twice in three months, a federal court found that the legal basis for a Trump tariff did not exist. Twice, the administration moved the same tariff onto a different legal foundation rather than withdraw it, and kept collecting money while the new foundation worked its way through appeals. The Federal Circuit has not yet ruled on the Section 122 appeal. Section 232 and Section 301 tariffs remain untouched by either case and require no court test to continue. The price of a steel beam, a car part, or an imported good does not change while the lawyers argue. Only the footnote describing which statute technically authorizes the charge does.