Supreme Court IEEPA tariff ruling, Learning Resources / V.O.S. Selections

On February 20, 2026, the Supreme Court of the United States issued its decision in the consolidated cases *Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump* and *Trump v. V.O.S. Selections, Inc.*, slip opinion 24-1287. The Court ruled 6-3 that "IEEPA does not authorize the President to impose tariffs." Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh dissented.

The cases consolidated challenges to the tariffs imposed under Executive Order 14257, the "Liberation Day" tariffs of April 2, 2025, and to a series of follow-on country-specific tariff orders, all grounded in the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977. The administration had argued that IEEPA's authority to "regulate" foreign transactions during a declared national emergency included the power to impose tariffs. The majority rejected that reading, applying the major-questions doctrine and concluding that Congress had not, in IEEPA's text or history, delegated tariff-imposition authority to the executive. The Court read tariff power as a core legislative power that Congress had granted only through narrower, more specific statutes such as Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, and Section 122 of the same Act.

The ruling voided about $160-179 billion in IEEPA tariffs ab initio, according to estimates by the Penn-Wharton Budget Model and tariff law analyses by Holland and Knight and K&L Gates. Within days, the administration pivoted to Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, which permits a 15% tariff on imports for up to 150 days to address balance-of-payments deficits. In March 2026, twenty-four state attorneys general filed suit challenging the Section 122 reauthorization, arguing the administration had not satisfied the statutory predicates. The combined effect of the Liberation Day tariffs, the SCOTUS ruling, and the pivot to Section 122 made the IEEPA defeat the largest single court loss of Donald Trump's second term measured in dollars affected.