Washington, USA (Weltexpress). Six judges of the Supreme Court, the highest court in the US, stopped the tariffs imposed by terror and war president Donald Trump (RP). He had signed them into law under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977, according to our calendar. Three judges voted in favor, as reported by Reuters (February 20, 2026).
The Trump administration also imposed huge tariffs on Germany. Some capitalists filed a lawsuit against this, as did a dozen states that are part of the US. According to John Roberts, who presides over the Supreme Court, “the president would have had to show clear authorization from Congress to justify his extraordinary exercise of the power to impose tariffs.”
He did not do so. What’s more, “he cannot do so.”
Like John Roberts, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, and Ketanji Brown Jackson also ruled in favor of the majority, while Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh voted against it.
By a vote of 6 to 3, the justices ruled that the U.S. Congress has the exclusive constitutional right to set import tariffs. This means that all tariffs enacted and announced under the 1977 Emergency Trade Act are null and void.
However, the justices’ decision does not affect tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, for example, as these were enacted on the basis of other legislation.
Bloomberg (February 20, 2026) reports that this ruling is the “biggest legal defeat” for the terror and war president Trump since his return to the White House.
What will now happen to the money that the US has already collected from these tariffs remains to be clarified.
Experts and critics know that the main burden of the tariffs has been passed on to US consumers. Trump has therefore lied to and deceived the American people, as he claimed that the tariffs would be paid by capitalists from other countries.
