The Supreme Court struck down Trump's IEEPA tariffs 6-3. Within hours he signed a new 10% global tariff under Section 122, then hiked that to 15%. The media called the ruling a "rebuke." The administration treated it as a routing problem. IEEPA doesn't work? Fine, Section 122. Section 122 expires in 150 days? Fine, Section 301 investigations are already queued up. Congress won't act? Fine, the president will find another statutory box to check. “Show me a 10 foot wall and I will build a 12 foot ladder.”
This is not a commentary on whether tariffs are good or bad policy, although if they work I would love to see the highly unconstitutional federal income tax repealed. This is a commentary on the rapidly growing concentration of power in the executive during both Republican and Democrat presidencies. The red vs blue is a pendulum swinging left and right, but that pendulum is also moving on a second axis, away from democracy and towards authoritarianism. This is a side effect of fiat money centralizing power.
The experts in this article somewhat all seem to agree that this SCOTUS ruling is somewhere between a pothole and speed bump for the administration as they pursue their agenda. It would be naïve to think the administration would go “aw, shucks” upon this ruling and just stop with the pursuit of tariff policy. Apply this same thing to the impending fed rate policy debate. Warsh was selected to replace Powell in May. Some are worried he'll be a hawk and defy Trump's objectives. Does anyone really think the administration will just accept that?