The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that Trump’s IEEPA tariffs were illegal. Not a technicality — the man literally did not have the legal authority to bypass Congress and impose duties on every import in the country. $166 billion in wrongly collected tariffs now has to be refunded. Customs is still trying to figure out the logistics. And what did Trump do hours after the ruling? Signed a new executive order slapping a 10% global tariff under a different law. Same policy, different letterhead. The Supreme Court struck it down and he just reloaded.
This is what “rule of law” looks like in 2026. The highest court in the country says you can’t do the thing, and you do the thing anyway with a slightly different pen. Meanwhile the effective tariff rate is still at 11%, manufacturers have shed 89,000 jobs since Liberation Day, and inflation is running hotter than the Fed wants because — shocker — taxing every import makes everything cost more. But sure, the trade deficit went down. Turns out people buy less when they can’t afford anything. The $151 billion the government raked in from tariffs this fiscal year is a sales tax on working people with extra steps.