The Supreme Court struck down President Trump's use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose sweeping tariffs in a 6–3 decision Friday morning, and Justice Clarence Thomas wasted no time dismantling the majority's reasoning in a blistering dissent.

Thomas, joined by Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Samuel Alito, argued the Court fundamentally misread both the statute and centuries of American trade law, Fox News reported. The majority, led by Chief Justice John Roberts, held that IEEPA, a 1977 law, does not authorize the president to impose tariffs even after declaring a national emergency, and that Congress never clearly transferred its tariff-and-tax power to the executive branch.

Thomas saw it differently. And he brought receipts.

The Historical Case the Majority Ignored

Thomas grounded his dissent in something the majority apparently found inconvenient: history. He pointed to the plain text of the statute, which authorizes the president to "regulate ... importation," and argued the meaning of that phrase has been settled for decades.

"Throughout American history, the authority to 'regulate importation' has been understood to include the authority to impose duties on imports."

This isn't abstract theorizing. Thomas traced the lineage to a concrete precedent. In 1971, President Nixon announced a 10% across-the-board import surcharge on foreign nations. The U.S. Court of Customs and Patent Appeals upheld that policy in 1975 in United States v. Yoshida Int'l. Congress then enacted IEEPA in 1977, using virtually identical language to the statute Nixon relied on.

Thomas connected the dots plainly:

"The meaning of that phrase was beyond doubt by the time that Congress enacted this statute, shortly after President Nixon's highly publicized duties on imports were upheld based on identical language."

In other words, Congress knew exactly what "regulate importation" meant when it wrote the law. It meant tariffs. The majority chose to pretend otherwise.

Roberts and the "Clear Authorization" Standard

Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the majority, framed the case as one about extraordinary executive power requiring explicit congressional blessing. He wrote:

"The president asserts the extraordinary power to unilaterally impose tariffs of unlimited amount, duration, and scope."

And then delivered what he considered the standard:

"In light of the breadth, history, and constitutional context of that asserted authority, he must identify clear congressional authorization to exercise it."

The problem with this framing is that Thomas and the dissenters believe clear authorization already exists, written into the statute in language that courts previously upheld. Roberts effectively imposed a new clarity requirement on top of language that functioned without controversy for half a century. Nixon used it. Courts blessed it. Congress codified it. Now six justices decided it wasn't clear enough.

The Nondelegation Question

Thomas went further, challenging the separation-of-powers logic underlying the majority opinion. He argued the nondelegation doctrine, which limits Congress's ability to hand off its legislative power, simply doesn't apply the same way in foreign trade.

"As I suggested over a decade ago, the nondelegation doctrine does not apply to 'a delegation of power to make rules governing private conduct in the area of foreign trade,' including rules imposing duties on imports."

His conclusion was direct:

"Therefore, to the extent that the Court relies on 'separation of powers principles' to rule against the President is mistaken."

Thomas also noted that Justice Kavanaugh's separate analysis demonstrated the statutory interpretation problems with the majority's position, writing that Kavanaugh "makes clear that the Court errs in concluding otherwise."

Three justices saw the constitutional question clearly. Six saw something else entirely.

Trump Moves Forward

President Trump held a press conference shortly after the decision, announcing a 10% global tariff and drawing a careful distinction about the ruling's scope. He noted the Court "did not overrule tariffs" but "merely overruled a particular use of IEEPA tariffs."

Just Thursday, during a trip to a steel factory in Georgia, Trump had warned that "without tariffs, this country would be in such trouble right now."

Trump unveiled his tariff policies in April 2025 as a tool to bring parity to U.S. trade policy and encourage businesses to build on American soil, part of a broader manufacturing push to strengthen the job market and the economy. The president's pivot to a 10% global tariff signals that the policy objective hasn't changed, even if one legal pathway has been narrowed.

What This Really Means

The majority opinion doesn't eliminate tariffs. It constrains the specific statutory vehicle used to impose them. That's a meaningful distinction, and one the president himself emphasized.

But the deeper issue Thomas raised deserves attention beyond this case. The Court created a standard that effectively overrides decades of statutory interpretation and judicial precedent. Congress wrote the words. A president used them. Courts upheld them. Then Congress passed a new law using the same words. And now the Supreme Court says those words don't mean what everyone understood them to mean for fifty years.

That's not judicial restraint. It's judicial reinvention.

Thomas saw through it. Whether the majority's reasoning holds up over time will depend on what Congress does next. But the dissent laid down a marker: the Constitution's text, the statute's history, and the precedent all pointed in one direction. The majority walked the other way.

The statute said "regulate importation." Six justices decided that didn't include regulating importation.