Those Words Cannot Bear Such Weight

The Ruling

On the morning of February 20, 2026, the Supreme Court of the United States issued its ruling in Learning Resources Inc. v. Trump. The vote was 6-3. The opinion was written by Chief Justice John Roberts. And the holding was unambiguous: the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not authorize the President to impose tariffs.1

Roberts' reasoning was precise. Trump's entire tariff regime rested on two words in IEEPA—"regulate" and "importation"—separated by sixteen other words in the statute. From those two words, the President had claimed the independent power to impose tariffs on imports from any country, of any product, at any rate, for any amount of time.

"Those words cannot bear such weight." — Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority

Roberts continued: "When Congress grants the power to impose tariffs, it does so clearly and with careful constraints. It did neither here." He noted that no president had ever read IEEPA to confer such power—until Trump. The statute contains no reference to tariffs or duties. The word "tariff" appears nowhere in the law.

The six justices in the majority agreed on the result but split on why. Roberts, joined by Gorsuch and Barrett, applied the major questions doctrine—the principle that Congress must speak clearly when delegating authority over matters of vast economic and political significance. Trump's interpretation, they wrote, represented a "transformative expansion" of presidential power that required explicit congressional delegation.

Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson agreed the tariffs were illegal but on simpler grounds: the statutory text just doesn't authorize them. You don't need a doctrine. You need a dictionary.

Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh dissented. Kavanaugh argued that tariffs are a "traditional and common tool" to regulate importation. But even in dissent, Kavanaugh acknowledged the stakes of the ruling, warning that the government "may be required to refund billions of dollars" to importers who paid the now-illegal tariffs.2

The $160 Billion Question

Trump's IEEPA tariffs were not a theoretical exercise. They were the largest unilateral tax increase in modern American history, and Americans had been paying them for nearly a year.

The Tax Foundation estimates those tariffs raised more than $160 billion for the federal government through the date of the ruling and would have raised $1.4 trillion over the next decade.3 A Yale Budget Lab study found the tariffs cost the average American family $1,751 in 2025 alone.4

Before the ruling, the average U.S. tariff rate on all imports stood at approximately 17%, including the IEEPA levies. With those tariffs struck down, the rate dropped to roughly 7%.

The ruling did not address refunds. The Court offered no guidance on whether or how the federal government should return the money it had collected under a law that six justices just declared does not authorize tariffs. That question now falls to the lower courts—and hundreds of companies are already in line.

Affiliates of Costco, Toyota, Goodyear, Columbia Sportswear, Barnes & Noble, Logitech, Marathon Petroleum, Revlon, Peloton, Crocs, Xerox, and Yeti are among the companies that have filed suit seeking refunds. The total potential liability could reach $170 billion—more than half of all tariff revenue collected.5

The "We Pay the Tariffs" coalition, a group of small businesses that had fought the tariffs, called the ruling a "tremendous victory."

The Defiance

What happened in the hours after the ruling tells you everything you need to know about this president's relationship with the rule of law.

In the span of a single day, the president of the United States responded to a Supreme Court ruling striking down his signature economic policy by: threatening the judiciary, attacking the justices who gave him his appointments, accusing the Court of corruption by foreign interests, and immediately signing a new order designed to achieve the same result the Court had just declared illegal.

"I'm ashamed of certain members of the court—absolutely ashamed." — Donald Trump, on the three conservative justices who ruled against him

Consider the specific cruelty of his attack on Barrett and Gorsuch. These are justices he appointed. Barrett was confirmed eight days before the 2020 election. Gorsuch was confirmed to a seat that Senate Republicans held open for over a year rather than allow President Obama to fill it. Trump has repeatedly taken credit for their presence on the Court, citing them as among his greatest achievements.

And when they ruled, not against him personally, but against an interpretation of a statute that no previous president had ever advanced, he called them "fools," "lapdogs," and "disloyal to the Constitution."

This is what loyalty means in Trumpism. It does not mean fidelity to law, to principle, or to the Constitution. It means fidelity to Trump. Any deviation—any independent judgment, any reading of the law that produces a result Trump does not want—is betrayal.

The Pattern

Trump's response to the tariff ruling was not new. It was the same response he has given to every court that has ruled against him. The pattern is so consistent it could be scripted:

Step 1: Attack the judge. When a federal judge blocked Trump's first Muslim ban in 2017, Trump called him a "so-called judge" and said the ruling was "ridiculous." When Judge Gonzalo Curiel presided over the Trump University fraud case, Trump said Curiel couldn't be fair because of his Mexican heritage. When Judge Arthur Engoron found Trump liable for fraud in the New York civil case, Trump called him "a disgrace" and "a radical." When Judge Juan Merchan presided over Trump's criminal trial, Trump called him "corrupt" and "conflicted."

Step 2: Claim corruption or bias. The Muslim ban judges were "political." Curiel was biased because of his ethnicity. Engoron was "radical." The Supreme Court majority was "swayed by foreign interests." The accusation is always the same: any unfavorable ruling is, by definition, illegitimate.

Step 3: Threaten consequences. "I have to do something about these courts." This is the quiet part said out loud. Not in a rally speech, not on Truth Social, but to governors in a private meeting. The threat is imprecise by design. What does "do something" mean? Court packing? Jurisdiction stripping? Ignoring rulings? The vagueness is the point. It's a promise that the judiciary's independence is conditional on its obedience.

Step 4: Circumvent the ruling. Don't comply—find another way. When the Muslim ban was blocked, Trump rewrote it and tried again. When the Census citizenship question was rejected, he issued executive orders seeking the same data. When the Court struck down his IEEPA tariffs, he signed a new tariff order under a different statute the same evening.

The message is clear: court rulings are not constraints. They are inconveniences to be routed around.

The Section 122 Gambit

The executive order Trump signed on the evening of February 20 is worth examining, because it reveals both the administration's legal creativity and its fundamental contempt for the constraints the Court just imposed.

Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 authorizes the president to impose tariffs of up to 15% to address "large and serious" balance-of-payments deficits. It has existed for fifty-two years. No president has ever used it. There is no judicial precedent interpreting its limits. Trump invoked it within hours of losing at the Supreme Court.6

The statute has three built-in constraints that distinguish it from the sweeping authority Trump claimed under IEEPA:

Trump's order imposes a 10% tariff effective February 24, with exceptions for some agricultural products, critical minerals, pharmaceuticals, some electronics, and passenger vehicles. The tariff automatically expires after 150 days unless Congress votes to extend it.

But legal analysts have already identified the obvious gambit: nothing in Section 122 clearly prevents the administration from allowing the tariff to expire, declaring a new balance-of-payments emergency, and restarting the 150-day clock. Serial emergency declarations could transform a temporary, constrained authority into a permanent tariff regime—exactly the kind of unconstrained, indefinite power the Supreme Court just ruled the president doesn't have.

The Court said the president cannot impose tariffs of "any product, at any rate, for any amount of time" under IEEPA. Trump's response was to find a different statute and impose tariffs on most products, at a lower rate, for 150 days at a time. The letter of the ruling is respected. Its spirit is openly mocked.

The Resistance

Not everyone watched the president attack the Supreme Court in silence.

California Governor Gavin Newsom seized on the ruling to demand immediate refunds:

"Time to pay the piper, Donald. These tariffs were nothing more than an illegal cash grab that drove up prices and hurt working families, so you could wreck longstanding alliances and extort them. Every dollar unlawfully taken must be refunded immediately—with interest. Cough up!" — Governor Gavin Newsom, February 20, 2026

Wall Street voted with its wallets. The S&P 500 rose 0.7%. The Nasdaq gained 0.9%. Retail stocks surged—Wayfair, Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Nike, and Target all climbed as traders priced in the end of Trump's tariffs. The Dow recovered from a 200-point loss earlier in the session, closing up 231 points.7

Hundreds of companies filed suit seeking refunds. The "We Pay the Tariffs" business coalition called the ruling a "tremendous victory." Trade lawyers predicted that refunds would eventually be owed. The question is how long the process takes—and whether the administration will drag its feet at every turn.

The gains were tempered, of course, when Trump announced his Section 122 tariffs that evening. The market had celebrated the death of the tariffs for approximately eight hours before the president revived them under a different name.

What It Means

The Supreme Court drew a line on February 20, 2026. Six justices—three conservative, three liberal—agreed that the president of the United States had exceeded his authority. That the emergency powers Congress granted in 1977 do not include the power to unilaterally reshape the global trading system. That two words in a statute cannot bear the weight of $160 billion in taxes imposed without congressional approval.

The president's response was to step over the line before the ink was dry.

This is not a story about tariffs. Tariffs are the mechanism. This is a story about what happens when a president treats the judiciary as an obstacle rather than a co-equal branch of government. When "I have to do something about these courts" is said not as a campaign applause line but as a statement of intent to a roomful of governors.

The three conservative justices who joined the majority—Roberts, Gorsuch, and Barrett—did something extraordinary on February 20. They told a president of their own party that he was wrong. Not about policy. About law. About the constitutional boundaries of executive power. This is exactly what the judiciary exists to do.

And for this, they were called "fools and lapdogs." "Unpatriotic." "Disloyal to the Constitution." "A disgrace to our nation."

This is the loyalty test, applied now to the last institution that has consistently checked Trump's power. The question is not whether the Court was right—six justices, spanning the ideological spectrum, agree that it was. The question is whether the ruling matters. Whether a constitutional boundary means anything when the president responds to it by threatening the institution that drew it, attacking the judges who enforced it, and immediately signing a new order designed to achieve the same result through different means.

"Those words cannot bear such weight," Roberts wrote, of the two words Trump used to justify $160 billion in unilateral taxation.

The same could be said of the Constitution itself—if no one is willing to enforce it.