The Trump administration is rebuilding its tariff architecture through rarely used Depression-era and Cold War-era trade statutes after the Supreme Court ruled that the president's preferred legal tool for imposing tariffs exceeded his authority, a pivot that has already produced new duties on Canada and Brazil.

In February, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not authorize the president to impose tariffs. The justices held that the power to levy import duties belongs to Congress alone, noting that IEEPA, a 1977 law designed to let presidents freeze assets and block transactions during national emergencies, contains no mention of import duties. Chief Justice Roberts was joined by both liberal and conservative justices in the majority, as the Washington Examiner detailed.

Rather than accept a diminished trade posture, the administration moved quickly. Within days, it imposed a 10% global surcharge under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. Then it went further, reaching for statutes that predate most living Americans.

Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 targets Canadian wine, hockey sticks, and cement

The administration invoked Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, a provision legal experts say has rarely been used in the modern era, to slap 50% tariffs on certain Canadian goods. That rate sits at the statutory ceiling the law allows when a foreign country allegedly places American commerce at a disadvantage. The targeted Canadian products include wine, hockey sticks, and cement, as AOL reported. Energy products, potash, critical minerals, and goods already covered by national security tariffs were exempted.

For Brazil, the administration turned to Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which authorizes action against unreasonable trade practices. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative held public hearings and consulted Brazilian officials before imposing 25% tariffs on many Brazilian imports. The procedural steps, hearings, consultations, formal findings, stand in contrast to the IEEPA approach the Court struck down, which relied on emergency declarations rather than trade-specific statutory processes.

The administration did not stop at two countries. Officials are pursuing Section 301 investigations into roughly 60 economies over alleged forced-labor concerns, and they are considering similar Section 338 and Section 301 measures against dozens of additional nations. Meanwhile, Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, which permits tariffs on national security grounds, remains in effect and untouched by the Supreme Court's ruling.

$166 billion in refunds and 3,000 lawsuits cloud the transition

The Supreme Court's ruling did not simply block future IEEPA tariffs. It created an enormous financial liability. The federal government collected more than $130 billion in now-unconstitutional tariffs through mid-December, and the Penn Wharton Budget Model estimated total refund exposure could reach $175 billion, AP News reported. A federal judge on the U.S. Court of International Trade ruled that all importers of record are entitled to refunds and ordered U.S. Customs to stop collecting the struck-down duties.

Trump called the court-ordered refunds "a travesty" and "an unnecessary and expensive slap in the face," framing the payouts as rewarding foreign interests that had taken advantage of American trade policy for years. The administration has explored legal avenues to slow the process, but a federal appeals court rejected one such attempt days before the trade court ruling.

Approximately 3,000 refund lawsuits are already pending before the Court of International Trade, assigned to the same three judges who ruled against the administration's IEEPA tariffs in the first place. One Washington-based trade dispute lawyer told the New York Post that the administration may attempt to move cases to more favorable venues or litigate them individually to delay payments.

The refund process itself carries its own inequity. While more than 330,000 businesses stand to recoup duties they paid through a new Customs and Border Protection portal, ordinary consumers who absorbed higher prices at the register are unlikely to see a dime back. The refunds flow to importers of record, the companies that cut the checks to Customs, not to the households that ultimately paid the cost in marked-up goods, Just The News reported.

That gap between who paid and who gets repaid is a reminder that trade disputes, however they play out in courtrooms and executive orders, land hardest on the people farthest from the negotiating table. It also underscores why the administration's determination to keep replacement tariffs in effect matters beyond the legal arguments.

Congress created the vacuum the administration is now filling

Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, a Republican who introduced legislation six years ago to reform IEEPA, placed the blame squarely on Congress for writing vague laws that invited decades of executive overreach.

"Congress is the one who made the mess out of all of this."

Roy told Newsmax that the Court's ruling complicates the president's trade agenda but acknowledged the justices recognized that other legal authorities remain available. He called on Congress to act, and potentially grant new tariff authority, rather than leave the executive branch improvising with 1930s-era statutes.

"Congress needs to clean it up. And the court here, I don't think, did us any favors. I think they made it worse."

Roy's frustration points to a structural problem that predates this administration. For decades, Congress has delegated broad authority to the executive branch through loosely worded statutes, then complained when presidents use that authority in ways legislators did not anticipate. The IEEPA tariff saga is only the latest example. The Supreme Court's birthright citizenship ruling exposed a similar dynamic, with justices divided over how far executive action can stretch when Congress leaves questions unresolved.

Phillip Magness, a senior fellow at the Independent Institute, described the administration's legal maneuvering in blunt terms: "Trump's attempts to shoehorn his tariffs under different sections of trade law are unprecedented in the modern era." Whether "unprecedented" means reckless or resourceful depends on where you sit. But the strategy is producing results. The average effective tariff rate has climbed to 11.8%, the highest since the early 1940s.

New tariffs face fresh legal exposure

The pivot to older statutes does not guarantee smooth sailing. Section 338, Section 301, and Section 232 each carry their own procedural requirements and legal vulnerabilities. The administration's new tariffs remain subject to judicial review, and trade lawyers are already studying whether the same courts that struck down IEEPA tariffs will scrutinize the replacement framework just as aggressively.

Section 301, in particular, gives the administration broad and largely uncapped authority, but it also demands a formal investigation, public hearings, and findings of unfair trade practices before tariffs can be imposed. The USTR followed those steps for Brazil. Whether the same process can be replicated across 60 economies simultaneously without cutting procedural corners is an open question.

The legislative branch, meanwhile, has shown little urgency. Despite Roy's call for reform and Speaker Johnson's push for legislation in other areas where the Court has checked executive power, no tariff-specific bill has gained meaningful traction. Congress appears content to let the courts and the White House fight it out, the same abdication that created the problem.

The administration's willingness to dig through the U.S. Code for statutes that predate the Great Depression speaks to its determination to maintain leverage on trade. The Supreme Court has reshaped the legal landscape on multiple fronts this year, and the tariff fight is far from settled. New legal challenges are likely. More refund battles are certain. And Congress still has not done its job.

When the legislature refuses to write clear law, it should not be surprised when the executive branch reads the fine print on every statute it can find, and the courts end up governing trade policy by default.