Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump Hit with Fatal Blow as SCOTUS Ruling Haunts Him!!!

Episode Date: May 8, 2026

In breaking news, Trump has lost again on his harebrained tariff scheme to tax the American people billions of dollars, as the Court of International Trade, in a 2-1 decision, strikes down Trump’s efforts to declare a phony “balance of payments” crisis to impose new 10% tariffs on the world. Popok explains why a “balance of trade” imbalance is not a “balance of payments” emergency, and what should happen next at the appellate courts, including the US Supreme Court, as Trump’s signature economic policy gets another black eye in court. Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast Cult Conversations: The Influence Continuum with Dr. Steve Hassan: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show The Ken Harbaugh Show: https://meidasnews.com/tag/the-ken-harbaugh-show Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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you. Go to the realreal.com to start selling and get your extra $200 to keep shopping at the real real real.com. That's the real real real.com. Terms apply. We got breaking news. Chalk up another victory for the Democratic attorneys general as the state of Oregon and other importers take down the Trump administration at the Court of International Trade, finding two to one that Donald Trump's attempt to replace his prior unconstitutional illegal tariffs with new unconstitutional illegal tariffs is no better than the first time around striking down his tariffs under the 1974 Trade Act Section 122. Oh, that's going to be on everybody's lips.

Section 122 tariffs are gone, everybody we can celebrate. Just another attempt by Donald Trump to try to bamboozle the American people. Tariffs are bad for the global economy. They're bad for the U.S. economy. They're not generating any money that can fill the hole that's created by Donald Trump's immoral, regressive tax scheme that taxes the middle class to give tax breaks to the rich. And he can't plug the hole by going after our allies and enemies alike

with another 10% up to 15% tariff. So says the Court of International Trade. the only court that matters at this point. In six years on legal A.F, until this year, we talked about the Court of International Trade exactly zero times. But now everybody has become an expert of the specialty court that sits in New York with three judge panels, and we've got the ruling. It has to do with Donald Trump trying to convince the three judge panel and not being able to,

that we have a balance of payments problem, not a balance. balance of trade, a balance of payment. So I have your attention. Let's get into it. I'm Michael Popock. You're on Midas Touch and on Legal A.F. And let's talk about this new ruling. Okay. Let's talk about where we were and where we are. Where we were is that the United States Supreme Court overwhelmingly rejected Donald Trump's efforts to use the International Economic Emergency Powers Act to impose tariffs on two hundred countries, finding that neither Article 1 of the Constitution about Congress's powers, gives the president the ability to tariff, especially under that statute, and struck them all down. Donald Trump, knowing that they were going to be struck down immediately, within a month or two, leapt into action and said, I'm going to tariff anyway. I have another tool with my toolback. But he doesn't.

See, the power to tariff and tax is. solely that of Congress under Article 1, Section 8. They can delegate to the executive branch, but it has to be an expressed delegation specific. You can't just, can't be ambiguous. Like, well, I wonder if Congress wanted the president to have that power. If you're there, if you're asking that question and scratching your head, then it's not a proper delegation.

There have been times in history and by statute that the Congress has delegated certain aspects of their tariffing and taxing power to the presidency. Trump's arguing that under a 1974 act that was created because of a unique set of problems about the monetary, global monetary system, the money system, the currency system, and different currencies, and the fluctuation of value for those different currencies. that and Nixon trying to solve it by hitting certain countries with tariffs, Congress needed to step in and come up with a law. So with that as the background, fluctuation in foreign currency,

you know, the money of other countries versus the value of the American dollar at the time. Coming off the gold standard, because we used to be on the gold standard, U.S. dollars in circulation had to be tied to a dollar amount of value of gold. gold hard gold ingots and bars sitting in the Federal Reserve, you know, in places like Fort Knox and things like that. Once we got off the gold standard, money fluctuated more than usual, especially around the world. So the balance of payments issue being addressed by the law that Trump tried to use is that on day one, I have a contract to pay X amount for your goods from Italy.

Okay? But on the day that I've got to make the purchase, my currency is lower than when I did the contract. And to make up for it, I've now got to overpay for the Italian goods. I've got to come up with more dollars. And to balance that out, the balance of payments,

to make sure I'm not getting screwed because of currency fluctuation, the Congress passed in 1974. Trade Act, this Section 122, allowing a president under those circumstances to address the balance of payments issue by having a short-term ability to tariff. That's not what's going on here. We don't have a balance of payments problem. Balance of payments doesn't mean balance of trade. Balance of trade, but they both have balance in the title, but balance of trade is we have a trade deficit or trade surplus. Trade deficit means you're buying less from me that I'm selling to you.

You know, you're not buying as much U.S. goods. We're buying too much goods from the European Union and there's a delta, there's a trade imbalance there would be a deficit. You're buying more from me that I'm selling to you. That's a trade surplus. But that's not a balance of payments issue, that's a goods inventory issue, if you will, which is at the heart of this case in front of judges Barnett, Kelly, and Stanso. And so what happened is the state of Oregon and some importers, the ones that bring the goods into the country, ran to the Court of International Trade and filed their lawsuit. Went up on a hearing.

We had some of the Democratic attorneys general talk about that. oral argument. And now we've got the ruling. The other interesting thing is the lawyers involved for the government. It's always this guy, Brett Schumate, the assistant attorney for the civil division of the U.S. Department of Justice. He's involved with so many cases. He can't possibly keep up. That's why we're watching an exhausted Department of Justice. Like Brett Schumontes involved with birthright citizenship. I just saw him. sign a brief about the Metropolitan Golf Course, the East Potomac Golf Course in D.C. Now he's on the international trade case.

I mean, listen, I like diversity in practice, but this is ridiculous. So the opinion, which I'll post on Legal AF Substack, or I have posted, goes through how we got to the 1974 Trade Act, starting first with Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. which gives Congress the sole power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, which are translated as tariffs. Coming out of immediately after World War II, there was a need for a more effective, efficient, global monetary money policy and system. and from the World War II came the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank and other ways for countries, especially the allies, to easily trade with each other because on payment issues. I mean, today we're talking about, you know, cryptocurrency and the blockchain and how that can be an efficient way to facilitate transactions,

especially around the world. Coming out of World War II, we were talking about, the gold standard and gold reserves and paper money. And so they all met at a place called Bretton Woods and came up with the Bretton Woods Accord and the Bretton Monetary System. And we sort of have the remnants of that even today. Well, come 20, 30 years later by the 1970s, because U.S. had come off the gold standard, there was tremendous fluctuations in currency value, which led to Congress after Nixon tried it himself, and there was an appeal up to a similar court, the predecessor court to the Court of International Trade, which was the customs court,

Congress says, let's fix it. They came up with a new law while the case was up on appeal, and it says as follows, whenever this is the law Trump tried to use. Whenever fundamental international payments problems require special import measures to restrict imports to make it more expensive to get things from Italy, to deal with large and serious United States balance of payment deficits, the president shall proclaim for a period not exceeding 150 days a temporary import surcharge not to exceed 15% in the form of duties on any articles, imported into the United States. But you have to have a fundamental international payment problem

on the United States side of the ledger. And after going through the whole Brettonwood system and Nixon and the era, this court, two to one, just declared that the unique circumstances that allows a president to invoke Section 122 tariffs is not anywhere present here. We have a balance of trade issue about goods,

but we don't have a balance of payments issue about money. And therefore, you cannot use this delegated authority because the underlying trigger is not present. What's that mean for Donald Trump and for us? Well, it's a good thing for the American consumer and importer because they just got through having the original tariffs struck down by the Supreme Court in the last month. And they're in the process of getting back the $170 million, sorry, $170 billion of

collected tariffs, which importers now have to go through a whole bunch of refund processes and maybe court cases to get their money back. Whether it ends up back in the American pocket, the consumer, some, some, Some places like FedEx have said they're going to refund the money. Some may be lower prices. Some will just keep the money. That's the problem with refunds based on goods and a tariff. So we're just getting out from under that and the impact on the economy and the ability of consumers to have any money left at the end of the month.

Now this has been destroyed. Now Trump's trying another way to tariff, which is through a system of hearings, conducted by the Commerce Department, but he'll never find a way to collect the hundreds of billions of dollars a year that he wanted to collect to offset the trillion dollars of tax breaks he's given the wealthy. It's probably the best thing that ever could happen to Trump, but he won't take the loss because this is a tremendous burden on the American people, these tax, these tariffs. And their elimination may actually benefit America, yet Donald Trump, won't take no for an answer.

So what happens next? There is a specialty appellate court in D.C. from which appeals from the Court of International Trade go. It's the Federal Circuit. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. They will, my gut is likely agree with a two to one panel. And if Donald Trump doesn't like it, he goes back to the United States Supreme Court all over again

to try to convince, you know, he lost last time six to three. He's going to have to convince those six that these tariffs are different than the other tariffs and try to teach them on balance of payments. That argument does no better at the Supreme Court than it did here at the Court of International Trade.

We'll follow it. It's important to our economy. It's important to the voters. And I'm so glad you're with me here on Midas Touch and Legal A.F. Take a moment. Hit the free subscribe button over on Legal A.F. So until my next report, I'm Michael Popak.

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