Letters from an American - February 20, 2026

Episode Date: February 21, 2026

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February 20, 26. Today, in a six to three decision, the U.S. Supreme Court found that President Donald J. Trump's Liberation Day tariffs were unconstitutional. Shortly after he took office, Trump Trump declared that two things, the influx of illegal drugs from Canada, Mexico, and China, and the country's large and persistent trade deficits, constituted national emergency. Under these emergency declarations, he claimed the authority to raise tariffs under the 1997 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or AIPA. The U.S. Constitution is clear that Congress and Congress alone has the authority to tax the American people, and tariffs are taxes.

But with the AIPA, Congress gave the president the power to respond quickly to, to an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States that originates in whole or substantial part outside the United States. The law specifies that any authority granted to the president may only be exercised to deal with an unusual

and extraordinary threat with respect to which a national emergency has been declared for purposes of this chapter, and may not be exercised for any other purpose. Although the law does not mention tariffs, Trump claimed the authority under AIPA to impose a sweeping new tariff system that upended the free trade principles

that have underpinned the economy of the United States and its allies and partners since World War II. Trump promised his supporters that foreign countries would pay the tariffs, but in fact, studies have reinforced what economists have always maintained. The cost of tariffs falls on businesses and consumers in the U.S. Similarly, Trump promised his tariffs would make the economy boom and bring back manufacturing jobs, but the latest report on U.S. economic growth in the fourth quarter of last year, released just this morning, shows that tariffs and the government shutdown slowed growth to

1.4%, bringing overall growth down from 2.8% in 2024 to 2.2% in 2025. While the U.S. added 1.46 million jobs in 2024, it added only 181,000 in 2025. Trump also used tariffs to justify his extension of the 2017 tax cuts on the wealthy incorporations. insisting that fees on foreign countries would fund the U.S. government and cut the deficit. It was always clear, though, that Trump's reliance on tariffs was mostly about seizing power. Trump's advisors appear to be using the strategy of Nazi political theorist Carl Schmidt, who opposed liberal democracy in which the state enables individuals to determine their own fate. Instead, he argued that true democracy erases individual self-determination by making the mass of people

one with the state and exercising their will through state power. That uniformity requires getting rid of opposition. Schmidt theorized that politics is simply about dividing people into friends and enemies and using the power of the state to crush enemies. Much of Schmidt's philosophy centered around the idea that in a nation that is based in a constitution and the rule of law, power belongs to the man who can exploit emergencies that create exceptions to the constitutional order, enabling him to exercise power without regard to the law. Trump, who almost certainly has not read Schmidt himself, asserted this view on August 26, 2025.

I have the right to do anything I want to do. I'm the President of the United States. If I think our country is in danger, and it is in danger in the cities, I can do it. Trump should be able to get his agenda passed according to the normal constitutional order, since the Republicans have control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Instead, he is operated under emergency powers. Since he took office, 13 months ago, Trump has declared at least nine national emergencies and one crime emergency in Washington, D.C. Since 1981, presidents have declared, on average, about seven national emergencies per four-year term. Having declared his power to do whatever he wished with tariffs, Trump used them for his own ends in both foreign policy and economics, punishing countries for enforcing the law against his allies, like Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, jailed after trying to overthrow the elected government, or strong-arming countries like Vietnam into giving real estate deals to his family.

Trump changed tariff rates apparently on his own whim. As Chief Justice Roberts noted, a month after imposing a 10% additional tariff on Chinese goods, he increased the rate to 20%. A month later, he removed the legal exemption for Chinese goods under $800. Less than a week after imposing reciprocal tariffs, he increased the rate on Chinese goods from 34% to 84%. The very next day, he jacked them up to 125%.

That meant the total tariff rate on Chinese goods was 145%. Trump's tariffs destabilized the global economy. while the wild instability made it impossible for U.S. companies to plan. Increasingly, other countries have simply cut the U.S. out of their trade deals while U.S. growth has slowed. The Tax Foundation estimated that Trump's tariffs cost the average American household about $1,000 in 2025. They projected that cost to be $1,300 in 2026.

Congress's Joint Economic Committee, made up of Democrats, estimates that number to be low. They say the actual cost has been $1,700 per household. It was a huge tax increase on the American people, imposed without reference at all to Congress, which is the only government body with the power to raise taxes. Now, the Supreme Court has said that the chaos and cost of Trump's tariffs was for nothing.

Trump's claim of a threat, of authority to levy tariffs under Aieipa was unconstitutional all along. Simon Rosenberg of the Hopium Chronicles wrote of the decision, All this reinforces that the tariffs were arguably both the most reckless act and the greatest abuse of power by a president in American history. He added, in most democracies, Trump's reckless and wild abuse of power through his tariffs would cause the government to fall or the leader to be removed.

The imposition of these tariffs against the will of Congress, the courts, our allies, and the American people. It's clear grounds for removal. As Ryan Goodman of Just Security pointed out, the justices in the majority expressed deep skepticism of claims to open-ended emergency powers, although it is not at all clear that they will recognize the same problem in other contexts. Trump did not take news of the court's decision calmly. Trump was at a private breakfast with governors at the White House when an aide handed him a note about the decision.

A source told Reuters White House reporter Jared Renshaw that Trump was visibly frustrated and said he, had to do something about the courts. Then he left the room. Three hours later, Trump delivered a public response in which he lambasted the justices in the majority, including two of the three on the court he nominated. He said the justices appointed by Democrats are against anything that makes America strong, healthy, and great again. They also are a, frankly, disgrace to our nation, those justices.

The Republicans in the majority are just being forced. fools and lapdogs for the rhinos and the radical left Democrats, and not that this should have anything at all to do with it, they're very unpatriotic and disloyal to our Constitution. As a whole, he claimed, the court has been swayed by foreign interests and a political movement that is far smaller than people would ever think. He asserted that obnoxious, ignorant, and loud people were frightening the justices, to keep them from doing what was right. Trump heaped praise on his appointee, Justice Brett Kavanaugh,

who joined Justice Samuel Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas in the minority. Trump continued in this vein for 45 minutes, ranting that he had created a booming economy that all of the Nobel Prize winners in economics had said was impossible. He returned to his fantasy identity as a peacemaker, reiterating that he had settled eight wars whether you like it or not,

saving 35 million lives, and claimed tariffs had made that possible. He claimed that he was very modest in my ask of other countries and businesses because he didn't want to sway the court. He said, I want to be a good boy. He told reporters that there were other ways to impose tariffs and that he intended to do so. Indeed, he said, the Supreme Court's decision today

made a president's ability to both regulate trade and impose tariffs more powerful and more crystal clear rather than less. I don't think they meant that. I'm sure they didn't. It's terrible. There will no longer be any doubt and the income coming in

and the protection of our companies and country will actually increase because of this decision. I don't think the court meant that, but it's the way it is. Trump's tariffs are unpopular enough that he could have interpreted the Supreme Court decision outlying them as providential, but instead he vowed to sign an order imposing 10% global tariffs under a law that permits him to do so for 150 days. When a reporter asked him why he couldn't just work with Congress to come up with a plan to push tariffs, Trump answered, I don't have to. I have the right to do tariffs, and I've always had the right to do tariffs, and it's all been approved by Congress, so there's no reason to do it. Tonight, Trump posted on social media that he had signed an order to impose a global 10% tariff on all countries, which will be effective almost immediately.

Economist Justin Wolfers asked, what problem is Trump's new global 10% tariff meant to solve? If it's about leverage, ask, how much leverage do you get from a tariff that disappears in 150 days? If it's on shoring, who builds new factories based on tariffs that disappear before the factory is built? It's a tax. That's all it is. The court did not say anything about how the government should remedy the economic dislocation the tariffs caused, or, for that matter, return the billions of dollars it took illegal. legally. Simon Rosenberg wrote that Democrats can now credibly call for the repeal of the Trump tax cuts and the clawing back of the additional ICE funding as a way of offsetting the revenue loss from the

ending of the illegal tariffs. But Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told an interviewer, I got a feeling the American people won't see refunds. Nonetheless, Representative Stephen Horstford, a Democrat of Nevada, and Janelle Bynum, a Democrat of Oregon, immediately introduced a bill to require the Trump administration to refund tariff revenue to U.S. businesses within 90 days. This afternoon, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker sent an invoice to Trump, charging him $8,679,261,261,6,6,000,6,000 $600 or $1,700 for every family in Illinois as reimbursement owed to the Illinois families for illegally imposed tariffs. It said, Illinois families paid the price for illegal tariffs at the grocery store,

at the hardware store, and around the kitchen table. Tariffs are taxes, and working families were the ones who paid them. families paid the bill. Time for Trump to pay us back. In a cover letter, Pritzker said, your tariff taxes wreaked havoc on farmers, enraged our allies, and sent grocery prices through the roof. This morning, your hand-picked Supreme Court justices notified you that they are unconstitutional. This letter and the attached invoice, stand as an official notice that compensation is owed to the people of Illinois. And if you do not comply, we will pursue further action.

Letters from an American was written and read by Heather Cox Richardson. It was produced at Soundscape Productions, Dead in Massachusetts. Recorded with music composed by Michael Moss.