Acting pursuant to his statutory authority to “regulate . . . importation” under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, the President has imposed tariffs on imports of foreign goods from various countries. The tariffs have generated vigorous policy debates. Those policy debates are not for the Federal Judiciary to resolve. Rather, the Judiciary's more limited role is to neutrally interpret and apply the law. The sole legal question here is whether, under IEEPA, tariffs are a means to “regulate . . . importation.” Statutory text, history, and precedent demonstrate that the answer is clearly yes: Like quotas and embargoes, tariffs are a traditional and common tool to regulate importation.
Since early in U. S. history, Congress has regularly authorized the President to impose tariffs on imports of foreign goods. Presidents have often used that authority to obtain leverage with foreign nations, help American manufacturers and workers compete on a more level playing feld, and generate revenue for the United States. Numerous laws such Page Proof Pending Publication as the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 and the Trade Act of 1974 continue to authorize the President to place tariffs on foreign imports in a variety of circumstances, and Presidents have often done so. In recent years, Presidents George W. Bush, Obama, and Biden have all imposed tariffs on foreign imports under those statutory authorities.
President Trump has similarly imposed tariffs, and has done so here under IEEPA. During declared national emergencies, IEEPA broadly authorizes the President to regulate international economic transactions. Most relevant for this case, during those national emergencies, IEEPA grants the President the power to “regulate . . . importation” of foreign goods.
In early 2025, President Trump declared two national emergencies pursuant to the National Emergencies Act.
See 50 U. S. C. § 1621(a). One emergency concerned drug traffcking into the United States. The other emergency involved trade imbalances with foreign nations that have harmed American manufacturers and workers.
To help address those emergencies, the President drew upon his authority in IEEPA to “regulate . . . importation,” and he imposed tariffs on imports from various countries. The plaintiffs argue and the Court concludes that the President lacks authority under IEEPA to impose tariffs. I disagree. In accord with Judge Taranto's careful and persuasive opinion in the Federal Circuit, I would conclude that the President's power under IEEPA to “regulate . . . importation” encompasses tariffs. As a matter of ordinary meaning, including dictionary defnitions and historical usage, the broad power to “regulate . . . importation” includes the traditional and common means to do so—in particular, quotas, embargoes, and tariffs.
History and precedent confrm that conclusion. In 1971, President Nixon imposed 10 percent tariffs on almost all foreign imports. He levied the tariffs under IEEPA's predecessor statute, the Trading with the Enemy Act, which simiPage Proof Pending Publication LEARNING RESOURCES, INC. v. TRUMP larly authorized the President to “regulate . . . importation.” The Nixon tariffs were upheld in court.
Moreover, in 1976, a year before IEEPA was enacted, this Court unanimously ruled that a similarly worded statute authorizing the President to “adjust the imports” permitted President Ford to impose monetary exactions on foreign oil imports. See Federal Energy Administration v. Algonquin SNG, Inc., 426 U. S. 548 (1976) (Algonquin).
For both the Nixon tariffs and the Ford tariffs upheld by this Court in Algonquin, the relevant statutory provisions did not specifcally refer to “tariffs” or “duties,” but instead more broadly authorized the President to “regulate . . . importation” or to “adjust the imports.” Therefore, when IEEPA was enacted in 1977 in the wake of the Nixon and Ford tariffs and the Algonquin decision, Congress and the public plainly would have understood that the power to “regulate . . . importation” included tariffs. If Congress wanted to exclude tariffs from IEEPA, it surely would not have enacted the same broad “regulate . . . importation” language that had just been used to justify major American tariffs on foreign imports.
Importantly, IEEPA's authorization for the President to impose tariffs did not grant the President any new substantive power. Since the Founding, numerous statutes have authorized—and still do authorize—the President to impose tariffs and other foreign import restrictions.
IEEPA merely allows the President to impose tariffs somewhat more effciently to deal with foreign threats during national emergencies.
Context and common sense buttress that interpretation of IEEPA. The plaintiffs and the Court acknowledge that IEEPA authorizes the President to impose quotas or embargoes on foreign imports—meaning that a President could completely block some or all imports. But they say that IEEPA does not authorize the President to employ the lesser power of tariffs, which simply condition imports on a payPage Proof Pending Publication ment. As they interpret the statute, the President could, for example, block all imports from China but cannot order even a $1 tariff on goods imported from China.
That approach does not make much sense. Properly read, IEEPA does not draw such an odd distinction between quotas and embargoes on the one hand and tariffs on the other. Rather, it empowers the President to regulate imports during national emergencies with the tools Presidents have traditionally and commonly used, including quotas, embargoes, and tariffs.
The Court today nonetheless concludes otherwise and holds that IEEPA does not authorize the President to impose tariffs to deal with the declared drug traffcking and trade defcit emergencies. But the Court's decision is splintered. In today's six-Justice majority, three Justices (Justice Sotomayor, Justice Kagan, and Justice Jackson) interpret IEEPA not to authorize tariffs as a matter of ordinary statutory interpretation. I disagree for the reasons noted above and elaborated on at length in this opinion.
Three other Justices (The Chief Justice, Justice Gorsuch, and Justice Barrett) lean on the major questions canon of statutory interpretation to resolve this case. That important canon requires “clear congressional authorization” for an executive action of major economic and political signifcance, particularly when the Executive exercises an “unheralded” power. West Virginia v. EPA, 597 U. S. 697, 722– 723 (2022) (quotation marks omitted).
In my view, as I will explain, the major questions canon does not control here for two alternative and independent reasons.
First, the statutory text, history, and precedent constitute “clear congressional authorization” for the President to impose tariffs under IEEPA. In particular, throughout American history, Presidents have commonly imposed tariffs as a means to “regulate . . . importation.” So tariffs were not an “unheralded” power when Congress enacted IEEPA in 1977 Page Proof Pending Publication LEARNING RESOURCES, INC. v. TRUMP and authorized the President to “regulate . . . importation” of foreign goods. Therefore, the major questions doctrine is satisfed here. Cf. Biden v. Missouri, 595 U. S. 87 (2022) (per curiam).
Second, in any event, the Court has never before applied the major questions doctrine in the foreign affairs context, including foreign trade. Rather, as Justice Robert Jackson summarized and remains true, this Court has always recognized the “ `unwisdom of requiring Congress in this feld of governmental power to lay down narrowly defnite standards by which the President is to be governed.' ” Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U. S. 579, 636, n. 2 (1952) (concurring opinion) (quoting United States v. Curtiss- Wright Export Corp., 299 U. S. 304, 321–322 (1936)). In foreign affairs cases, courts read the statute as written and do not employ the major questions doctrine as a thumb on the scale against the President.
Although I frmly disagree with the Court's holding today, the decision might not substantially constrain a President's ability to order tariffs going forward. That is because numerous other federal statutes authorize the President to impose tariffs and might justify most (if not all) of the tariffs at issue in this case—albeit perhaps with a few additional procedural steps that IEEPA, as an emergency statute, does not require. Those statutes include, for example, the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 (Section 232); the Trade Act of 1974 (Sections 122, 201, and 301); and the Tariff Act of 1930 (Section 338). In essence, the Court today concludes that the President checked the wrong statutory box by relying on IEEPA rather than another statute to impose these tariffs. In the meantime, however, the interim effects of the Court's decision could be substantial. The United States may be required to refund billions of dollars to importers who paid the IEEPA tariffs, even though some importers may have already passed on costs to consumers or others.
As was acknowledged at oral argument, the refund process Page Proof Pending Publication is likely to be a “mess.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 153–155. In addition, according to the Government, the IEEPA tariffs have helped facilitate trade deals worth trillions of dollars— including with foreign nations from China to the United Kingdom to Japan, and more. The Court's decision could generate uncertainty regarding those trade arrangements.
In any event, the only issue before the Court today is one of law. In light of the statutory text, longstanding historical practice, and relevant Supreme Court precedents, I would conclude that IEEPA authorizes the President to “regulate . . . importation” by imposing tariffs on foreign imports during declared national emergencies. I therefore respectfully dissent.1
I
Before turning to the specifcs of IEEPA's text, history, and precedent, I briefy review several fundamental constitutional principles about the roles of the three branches of the U. S. Government with respect to this case.
First, the plaintiffs and their amici, echoed by the Court, rhetorically emphasize that Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution assigns Congress, not the President, authority over tariffs. Ante, at 240. That rhetoric is a red herring in this case because no one disputes the point. Everyone, including the President, agrees that Congress possesses constitutional authority over tariffs.
The important principle here, as everyone also acknowledges, is that Congress may in turn authorize the President to impose tariffs. Cf. FCC v. Consumers' Research, 606 U. S. 656, 673–675 (2025); J. W. Hampton, Jr., & Co. v. United States, 276 U. S. 394, 409–410 (1928). Indeed, since the beginning of the Republic, Congress has regularly empowered the President to order tariffs and other foreign import re1In this dissent, when I refer to “The Chief Justice's opinion,” I am referring to the parts of The Chief Justice's opinion that speak for only three Justices—namely, Parts II–A–2 and III.
Page Proof Pending Publication LEARNING RESOURCES, INC. v. TRUMP strictions under various circumstances. As noted above, many current federal laws continue to grant the President expansive tariff authority, including the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 (Section 232); the Trade Act of 1974 (Sections 122, 201, and 301); and the Tariff Act of 1930 (Section 338). Neither the plaintiffs nor the Court has suggested that the numerous laws granting tariff power to the President violate the Constitution's separation of powers.
Second, and relatedly, the President does not claim unilateral authority to impose IEEPA tariffs without congressional authorization or over a congressional prohibition. On the contrary, the President's argument recognizes that, in exercising his statutory tariff power under IEEPA, he must act within the scope of Congress's authorizations and abide by Congress's limitations. And the Executive has further acknowledged that the Judiciary maintains the fnal word in justiciable cases on whether Congress has authorized the President to impose those tariffs under IEEPA. See Trump v. CASA, Inc., 606 U. S. 831, 859–860, n. 18 (2025); cf. Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 177–178 (1803).
The President here contends only that Congress, by enacting IEEPA in 1977, authorized the President to impose tariffs on foreign imports in declared national emergencies. To use the familiar vernacular of Justice Robert Jackson in Youngstown, the President argues that this case falls into category one, where the President is acting “pursuant to an express or implied authorization of Congress.” Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U. S. 579, 635 (1952) (concurring opinion). The President has not here asserted authority to impose IEEPA tariffs in a peacetime emergency in a Youngstown category two or three scenario. Id., at 637– 638.2 2 Category two applies when “the President acts in absence of either a congressional grant or denial of authority.” Youngstown, 343 U. S., at 637 (Jackson, J., concurring). Category three occurs when “the President Page Proof Pending Publication Third, Congress possesses a variety of tools to limit the President's tariffs—directly via new legislation or, perhaps more readily, by not approving annual appropriations necessary for the Executive Branch to continue to implement the tariffs. See Biden v. Nebraska, 600 U. S. 477, 505 (2023) (“Among Congress's most important authorities is its control of the purse”).
Importantly, the House, the Senate, and the President annually approve most appropriations. As a result, each House of Congress and the President independently possesses de facto veto power over particular appropriations.3 Of course, many different appropriations items are usually considered and packaged together, so the negotiations can be complex. But the point stands: Congress is not a helpless bystander when it comes to the President's exercise of tariff authority under IEEPA. Cf. Ike Skelton National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011, 124 Stat. 4351–4352 (barring Executive from using funds to transfer detainees from Guantanamo into United States); Boland Amendment, 98 Stat. 1935–1936 (1984) (barring certain Executive Branch agencies from providing aid to Contras in Nicaragua).
In Congress, moreover, everything is related to everything else, as the saying goes. Members and Committees of Congress possess substantial tools of leverage over the Executive Branch. Cf. The Federalist No. 51, p. 322 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961) (J. Madison). Congress could, for example, wield its authority over oversight, legislation, confrmations, or appropriations to pressure the President to reduce or eliminate some or all of the IEEPA tariffs.
takes measures incompatible with the expressed or implied will of Congress.” Ibid. 3Two technical points for clarity: Given current Senate flibuster rules, a determined minority of the Senate could block an appropriation. Also, even over a Presidential veto, two-thirds of both Houses could together approve certain appropriations.
Page Proof Pending Publication LEARNING RESOURCES, INC. v. TRUMP In light of Congress's appropriations authority and its other robust powers, it is not correct to suggest—as The Chief Justice's opinion today elliptically does, ante, at 244—that two-thirds majorities of both Houses of Congress would need to pass new legislation over a Presidential veto in order to limit these IEEPA tariffs or, more generally, to restrict the President's use of IEEPA to impose tariffs.
II
This case presents one straightforward question of statutory interpretation: Does Congress's explicit grant of authority in IEEPA for the President to “regulate . . . importation” of foreign goods in declared national emergencies authorize the President to impose tariffs? The answer is a clear yes.4
A
I begin as always with the statutory text.
In 1941, a few days after Pearl Harbor, Congress frst enacted the relevant language, “regulate . . . importation,” in an amendment to the 1917 Trading with the Enemy Act, known as TWEA. 55 Stat. 839; 40 Stat. 411. After that 1941 amendment, TWEA authorized the President to “regulate . . . importation” both during wartime and during peacetime national emergencies.
4The relevant statutory provision provides in full: “At the times and to the extent specifed in section 1701 of this title, the President may, under such regulations as he may prescribe, by means of instructions, licenses, or otherwise— .
.
.
.
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“(B) investigate, block during the pendency of an investigation, regulate, direct and compel, nullify, void, prevent or prohibit, any acquisition, holding, withholding, use, transfer, withdrawal, transportation, importation or exportation of, or dealing in, or exercising any right, power, or privilege with respect to, or transactions involving, any property in which any foreign country or a national thereof has any interest by any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.” 50 U. S. C. § 1702(a)(1) (emphasis added).
Page Proof Pending Publication Then, in 1977, Congress split TWEA into two separate statutes. As relevant here, Congress amended TWEA to authorize the President to “regulate . . . importation” during wartime only. 91 Stat. 1625. And Congress enacted a separate statute, IEEPA, that granted the President the power to “regulate . . . importation” during peacetime national emergencies. Id., at 1626.
The relevant IEEPA text authorized the President to “regulate . . . importation” “by means of instructions, licenses, or otherwise.” Ibid.; 50 U. S. C. § 1702(a)(1) (emphasis added). As the term “otherwise” indicates, the broadly worded statute did not exclude tariffs or dictate any specifc means of regulating importation.5 At the time of TWEA's amendment in 1941 and IEEPA's enactment in 1977, the ordinary dictionary meaning of “regulate” was to “control,” to “adjust by rule,” or to “subject to governing principles or laws.” Black's Law Dictionary 1156 (5th ed. 1979); see also Black's Law Dictionary 1519 (3d ed. 1933) (same); Webster's Third New International Dictionary 1913 (1976) (defning “regulate” as “to govern or direct according to rule” and “to bring under the control of law or constituted authority”); American Heritage Dictionary 1096 (1969) (“[t]o control or direct according to a rule”; “[t]o adjust in conformity to a specifcation or requirement”).
Imposing tariffs on imports is clearly a way of controlling imports (Black's); governing or directing imports according to rule (Webster's, American Heritage); adjusting imports by rule, method, or established mode (Black's, American Heritage); or more generally subjecting imports to governing principles or laws (Black's). So the dictionary defni5Congress no doubt appreciated that quotas, embargoes, tariffs, and the like can be powerful tools for regulating foreign commerce. Congress calibrated the statute by exempting various categories of goods, meaning that those categories of goods are not subject to tariffs under IEEPA. § 1702(b).
Page Proof Pending Publication LEARNING RESOURCES, INC. v. TRUMP tions amply demonstrate that tariffs are a means to “regulate . . . importation” of foreign imports.6 Consistent with those dictionary defnitions and statutory references, tariffs historically have been—and still are—a common means for the United States to regulate importation of foreign goods. See, e. g., Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, 46 Stat. 704–706 (19 U. S. C. § 1338); Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, 76 Stat. 877 (19 U. S. C. § 1862); Title II of the Trade Act of 1974, 88 Stat. 2011 (19 U. S. C. § 2251 et seq.); Title III of the Trade Act of 1974, 88 Stat. 2041 (19 U. S. C. § 2411 et seq.).7 In determining the ordinary meaning of “regulate . . . importation,” the meaning of the related phrase “regulate commerce” is also instructive. That phrase has long been interpreted to encompass tariffs. Since the Founding, the Constitution's assignment to Congress of the broad power to “regulate” foreign commerce has been understood to include tariffs on foreign imports. See Art. I, § 8. As Chief Justice Marshall explained, the “right to regulate commerce, even by the imposition of duties, was not controverted.” Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 202 (1824) (emphasis added). So too Justice Story: The “power to regulate commerce includes the power of laying duties to countervail the regulations and restrictions of foreign nations.” 2 J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States 530 (1833) (emphasis added). And still more Story: To “lay duties” is a “common means of executing the power” to “regulate commerce.”
Id., at 531 (emphasis added). James Madison likewise stated 6As other statutory authorities textually confrm, moreover, Congress has long understood tariffs to be a tool for regulating imports. For example, Section 350 of the Tariff Act of 1930 refers to “duties and other import restrictions.” 19 U. S. C. §§ 1351(a)(1)(B), (c). And Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 uses the phrase “restrict imports” to cover duties. § 2132(a). Both statutes take it as a given, therefore, that tariffs are a means of regulating imports.
7As the parties and the Court use the terms, “tariffs” and “duties” are synonymous.
Page Proof Pending Publication Page Proof Pending Publication that it cannot “be inferred” that the “power to regulate trade does not involve a power to tax it.” Letter from J. Madison to J. Cabell, Sept. 18, 1828, in 9 Writings of James Madison 326 (G. Hunt ed. 1910) (emphasis added).
Marshall, Story, and Madison make for a formidable trio.
And this Court has long echoed the Marshall-Story-Madison understanding that tariffs “regulate” foreign commerce.
The “laying of a duty on imports, although an exercise of the taxing power, is also an exercise of the power to regulate foreign commerce.” McGoldrick v. Gulf Oil Corp., 309 U. S. 414, 428 (1940) (emphasis added). And again: Even though “the taxing power is a distinct power and embraces the power to lay duties, it does not follow that duties may not be imposed in the exercise of the power to regulate com merce. The contrary is well established.” Board of Trust ees of Univ. of Ill. v. United States, 289 U. S. 48, 58 (1933) (emphasis added).8 The plaintiffs and the Court today seize on the word “regulate” in isolation, and say that it does not encompass the power to tariff. Ante, at 249–251. But the relevant statutory phrase is “regulate . . . importation.” And we must look to the meaning of the phrase as a whole, as our precedents dictate. See FCC v. AT&T Inc., 562 U. S. 397, 406 (2011) (“[T]wo words together may assume a more particular meaning than those words in isolation”). As I have explained, since the Founding, tariffs on foreign imports have been a common means of regulating foreign commerce, including imports. Notably, under the Court's reading of the word “regulate,” Marshall, Story, and Madison all erred by concluding that the power to “regulate” foreign commerce includes the power to impose tariffs on foreign imports.
That seems dubious.
8Importantly, those historical sources also fully demonstrate that the Foreign Commerce Clause, not just the Taxing Clause, authorizes tariffs on foreign imports. See Board of Trustees of Univ. of Ill., 289 U. S., at 58.
LEARNING RESOURCES, INC. v. TRUMP If the Federal Government's constitutional power to “regulate” foreign commerce includes tariffs (as this Court has repeatedly said), and if the power to “regulate . . . importation” is the power to regulate foreign commerce with respect to imports (as it plainly is), then IEEPA's authorization for the President to “regulate . . . importation” clearly encompasses tariffs. Historical usage and that textual syllogism further buttress the dictionary defnitions and help establish that tariffs are a means to regulate importation.9
B
Perhaps even more signifcantly, when IEEPA was enacted in 1977, Congress and the public clearly would have understood that the phrase “regulate . . . importation” encompassed tariffs. We know as much not only because of the dictionary defnitions and the traditional understanding of tariffs as a tool to regulate foreign imports. We also know as much because of tariffs imposed by two Presidents and approved by federal courts, including the Supreme Court, in the years shortly before IEEPA's 1977 enactment. First, in 1971, President Nixon imposed 10 percent tariffs across the board on virtually all imports from every country in the world. Presidential Proclamation No. 4074, 3 CFR 9The plaintiffs and the Court offer a double-bankshot argument that “regulate . . . importation” cannot include monetary exactions because IEEPA also authorizes the President to “regulate . . . exportation,” and imposing duties on exports would violate the Constitution. Ante, at 250. But as the Government thoroughly explains, when a statute contains a long string of verbs and nouns, each term should be understood in context. The relevant section of IEEPA contains 9 verbs and 11 objects, for a total of 99 combinations. We do not need to construe each word of the statute to ensure that it is perfectly aligned in all 99 pairings. See Reply Brief 17; Robers v. United States, 572 U. S. 639, 643–644 (2014); Department of Agriculture Rural Development Rural Housing Service v. Kirtz, 601 U. S. 42, 61 (2024) (We may not “disregard the statute's clear terms” simply because there may be “a valid constitutional defense” to some applications).
Page Proof Pending Publication 60–61 (1971–1975 Comp.). Those tariffs were justifed under IEEPA's predecessor statute, the Trading with the Enemy Act, or TWEA.10 Like IEEPA now, TWEA at that time authorized the President to “regulate . . . importation” during national emergencies, as well as wartime. And like IEEPA now, TWEA did not specifcally use the words “tariff ” or “duty.”
The Nixon tariffs did not fy below the radar. On the contrary, President Nixon announced the worldwide 10 percent tariffs in a primetime address to the Nation on August 15, 1971. He imposed the tariffs as a tool “to make certain that American products will not be at a disadvantage” and that “the product of American labor will be more competitive.” Public Papers of the Presidents, Richard Nixon, Aug. 15, 1971, p. 889. President Nixon sought to remove “the unfair edge that some of our foreign competition has,” and he declared that when “the unfair treatment is ended, the import tax will end.” Ibid. The Nixon tariffs applied to almost all imports of foreign goods into the United States. And the tariffs had no time limit. To be sure, they did not end up lasting forever. But President Nixon terminated them only because the tariffs (as intended) induced major American trading partners to negotiate new agreements. Presidential Proclamation No. 4098, 3 CFR 94 (1971–1975 Comp.).
The Nixon tariffs garnered substantial national and international attention, and were generally popular in Congress. Predictably, however, the tariffs sparked litigation challenges. In 1975, the Court of Customs and Patent Appeals, 10President Nixon did not explicitly cite the “regulate . . . importation” language of TWEA when imposing those worldwide tariffs. But that merely refected a diplomatic nicety given the title of the “Trading with the Enemy Act” and the desire to avoid publicly suggesting that allies were enemies. Once in court, the President openly invoked the “regulate . . . importation” language of TWEA as justifcation for the tariffs. See United States v. Yoshida Int'l, Inc., 526 F. 2d 560, 569–571 (CCPA 1975). Page Proof Pending Publication LEARNING RESOURCES, INC. v. TRUMP the predecessor to the Federal Circuit, upheld the Nixon tariffs as a lawful exercise of the President's authority to “regulate . . . importation” under TWEA. United States v. Yo shida Int'l, Inc., 526 F. 2d 560, 576, 583–584. The losing plaintiffs did not seek further review in this Court.
Two years later in 1977, when Congress divided TWEA into two, Congress retained that same “regulate . . . importation” language in both laws—in TWEA for wartime and in IEEPA for peacetime national emergencies. In doing so, Members of Congress were plainly aware—after all, how could they not be—that the “regulate . . . importation” language had recently been invoked by the President and interpreted by the courts to encompass tariffs. Indeed, the House Committee Report noted that the relevant “regulate . . . importation” provision in TWEA “came into play when, on August 15, 1971, President Nixon declared a national emergency with respect to the balance-of-payments crisis and under that emergency imposed a surcharge on imports.” H. R. Rep. No. 95–459, p. 5 (1977). The Report further referenced the appeals court's holding in Yoshida that TWEA “authorized imposition of duties” because of “the existence of the national emergency.” H. R. Rep. No. 95–459, at 5.11 The Nixon tariffs persuasively demonstrate that Members of Congress and the public would have understood the phrase “regulate . . . importation” to include tariffs when IEEPA was enacted in 1977. If Congress wanted to exclude tariffs from IEEPA's scope, why would it enact the exact statutory language from TWEA that had just been invoked by the President and interpreted by the courts to cover tariffs? Neither the plaintiffs nor the Court today offers a 11I cite the Committee Report not for determining the meaning of IEEPA, but rather to help show as an historical and factual matter that Members of Congress were aware of both the Nixon tariffs and the appeals court decision upholding those tariffs as a tool to “regulate . . . importation.”
Page Proof Pending Publication good answer to that question. Understandably so, because there is no good answer.
The Court tries to dodge the force of the Nixon tariffs by observing that one appeals court's interpretation of “regulate . . . importation” to uphold President Nixon's tariffs does not suffce to describe that interpretation as “well-settled” when IEEPA was enacted in 1977. Ante, at 252–253. Fair enough. But that is not the right question. The question is what Members of Congress and the public would have understood “regulate . . . importation” to mean when Congress enacted IEEPA in 1977. See New Prime Inc. v. Oliveira, 586 U. S. 105, 113 (2019). Given the signifcant and well- known Nixon tariffs, it is entirely implausible to think that Congress's 1977 re-enactment of the phrase “regulate . . . importation” in IEEPA was somehow meant or understood to exclude tariffs.12 Second, if one holds any lingering doubts about Congress's and the public's understanding of the power to “regulate . . . importation” as of 1977, a second episode shortly before IEEPA's enactment should answer them.
In 1975, President Ford imposed signifcant monetary exactions on foreign imports of oil. Presidential Proclamation No. 4341, 3 CFR 433 (1971–1975 Comp.). He acted under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. Like TWEA and IEEPA, the relevant provision of Section 232 did not use the word “tariff” or “duty.” Rather, Section 232 broadly authorized the President to “adjust the imports” of a product, 19 U. S. C. § 1862(b) (1970 ed.)—language akin to 12The Chief Justice's opinion also tries to dismiss President Nixon's tariffs as being of “limited amount, duration, and scope.” Ante, at 245, n. 3. That claim appears incorrect on all three points, as Judge Taranto carefully explained in his Federal Circuit opinion. 149 F. 4th 1312, 1367– 1369 (2025) (dissenting opinion). President Nixon imposed 10 percent tariffs on virtually all imports from every country in the world for an unspecifed duration. See Presidential Proclamation No. 4074, 3 CFR 60–61 (1971–1975 Comp.).
Page Proof Pending Publication LEARNING RESOURCES, INC. v. TRUMP the “regulate . . . importation” language in IEEPA and TWEA.
In contrast to the Nixon tariffs, the Ford tariffs on oil imports generated some pushback in Congress. And a group of utility companies and States quickly sued, arguing that the relevant statutory phrase “adjust the imports” did not authorize monetary exactions such as tariffs.
Over a dissent, the D. C. Circuit agreed with the plaintiffs challenging the Ford tariffs. Much like the Court's decision today, the D. C. Circuit in the Ford matter concluded that Congress must explicitly authorize monetary exactions and that the applicable statutory phrase, “adjust the imports,” did not do so. Algonquin SNG, Inc. v. Federal Energy Admin., 518 F. 2d 1051, 1055 (CADC 1975).
In 1976, the Ford tariffs case came to the Supreme Court. In this Court, the plaintiffs pressed nearly identical arguments (and rhetorical fourishes) as those advanced by the plaintiffs and repeated by the Court in today's case.
The plaintiffs argued that the Ford-imposed monetary exactions involved “the broadest exercise of the tariff power in the history of the American Republic,” reminiscent of “George III's stamp tax.” Tr. of Oral Arg. in Federal En ergy Administration v. Algonquin SNG, Inc., O. T. 1975, No. 75–382, p. 26. They contended that the statute's authorization for the President to “adjust the imports” did not allow for such monetary exactions because the statute did “not mention the tariff on its face.” Ibid. They asserted that this Court had “never implied a tax, never in the history of this Court from language which does not explicitly provide for tax, and here there is no such language, there is no language that mentions a measure of tax nor a method of calculation of tax. There is no such thing.” Id., at 33. They echoed the D. C. Circuit's holding that reading the phrase “adjust the imports” to encompass tariffs would be “an anomalous departure” from “the consistently explicit, wellPage Proof Pending Publication defned manner in which Congress has delegated control over foreign trade and tariffs.” Algonquin, 518 F. 2d, at 1055. And they claimed that interpreting the statute to include fees “undermines the whole tariff structure of the United States.” Tr. of Oral Arg. in Algonquin, at 26.
Importantly, the Algonquin plaintiffs acknowledged (as do the plaintiffs and the Court in today's case) that the statutory language “adjust the imports” would allow the President to impose quotas and embargoes on foreign imports.
See Brief for Respondents in Algonquin, No. 75–382, pp. 26– 27, and n. 30. So a President could completely block all imports or limit their quantity. But according to the plaintiffs, Congress's “adjust the imports” language precluded the President from exercising the lesser power of imposing monetary exactions such as tariffs.
The Supreme Court decided the Ford tariffs case in 1976.
The Court unanimously reversed the D. C. Circuit and fatly rejected the plaintiffs' arguments. The Court held that the statutory phrase “adjust the imports”—even though it did not include terms such as “tariff,” “tax,” “duty,” or “fee”— granted President Ford the authority to impose not only quotas and embargoes, but also monetary exactions on foreign imports. Federal Energy Administration v. Algonquin SNG, Inc., 426 U. S. 548, 561 (1976).
The Court analyzed the statutory text and found “no support in the language of the statute” for the plaintiffs' argument that “adjust the imports” should “be read to encompass only quantitative methods—i. e., quotas—as opposed to monetary methods—i. e., license fees—of effecting such adjustments.” Ibid. The Court further explained: “Unless one assumes, and we do not, that quotas will always be a feasible method of dealing directly with national security threats posed by the circumstances under which imports are entering the country, limiting the President to the use of quotas would effectively and artifcially prohibit him from directly Page Proof Pending Publication LEARNING RESOURCES, INC. v. TRUMP dealing with some of the very problems against which § 232(b) is directed.”
Id., at 561–562 (quotation marks omitted).
In short, according to the unanimous Algonquin Court, the statutory text, structure, and logic of Section 232 defnitively established that the President's authority to “adjust the imports” encompassed not only quotas and embargoes, but also monetary exactions such as tariffs and fees.
Today's case should follow a fortiori from Algonquin. No meaningful daylight exists between the statutory phrase “adjust the imports” in Section 232 at issue in Algonquin and the phrase “regulate . . . importation” in IEEPA at issue here. The plaintiffs and the Court in this case do not even try to distinguish “adjust the imports” from “regulate . . . importation.” Nor could they. Recall that the dictionary defnition of “regulate” includes “adjust by rule.” Black's Law Dictionary, at 1156 (5th ed. 1979) (emphasis added). To adjust imports is to regulate imports. Indeed, if anything, the phrase “regulate . . . importation” is broader in scope than the phrase “adjust the imports.”
So if Section 232's “adjust the imports” includes tariffs— as this Court unanimously concluded in Algonquin in 1976 just a year before IEEPA—how can IEEPA's “regulate . . .
importation” not include tariffs?
Algonquin's importance for today's case rests not merely on its status as a unanimous on-point Supreme Court statutory precedent—although it is surely signifcant for that reason as well. The case is especially consequential for present purposes because it helps show the ordinary public and congressional understanding of “regulate . . . importation” in 1977 when Congress enacted IEEPA.
To be clear, the question here is not what individual Members of Congress might have subjectively intended in 1977. The question is the ordinary meaning and understanding of the words that Congress used. Given that the phrase “adjust the imports”—again, in a statutory provision that did Page Proof Pending Publication not use specifc words such as “tariff ” or “duty”—was unanimously held by this Court in 1976 to include tariffs, and given that President Nixon had similarly relied on his statutory authority to “regulate . . . importation” to impose 10 percent tariffs on virtually all imports from all countries, could a rational citizen or Member of Congress in 1977 have understood “regulate . . . importation” in IEEPA not to encompass tariffs? I think not. Any citizens or Members of Congress in 1977 who somehow thought that the “regulate . . . importation” language in IEEPA excluded tariffs would have had their heads in the sand.
The Court today tries its best to distinguish Algonquin on the ground that Section 232 included “sweeping” language authorizing the President to take “such action” that “he deems necessary,” whereas IEEPA does not. Ante, at 254.
But the Algonquin Court did not rely on that language and instead focused on whether the phrase “adjust the imports” included monetary exactions. See 426 U. S., at 561. Moreover, IEEPA itself broadly authorizes the President to “regulate . . . importation” “by means of instructions, licenses, or otherwise” in order to “deal with” an “unusual and extraordinary” foreign “threat” to the “national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States.” 50 U. S. C. §§ 1701(a), 1702(a)(1)(B) (emphasis added). That language is similarly expansive, authorizing the President to employ various tools to “regulate . . . importation.” In short, just as the phrase “adjust the imports” includes tariffs, as Algonquin held, so too the phrase “regulate . . . importation” includes tariffs.13 The Court also attempts to brush aside Algonquin by citing an entirely different provision of the Trade Expansion Act—one that was not at issue in Algonquin—that expressly refers to a “duty.” Ante, at 254. But the Algonquin Court did not rely on—or even mention—that provision when con13In addition, IEEPA expressly authorizes the President to require licenses. And to obtain a license, a business may need to pay license fees that can be equivalent to tariffs. See § 1702(a)(1).
Page Proof Pending Publication LEARNING RESOURCES, INC. v. TRUMP cluding that the statutory phrase “adjust the imports” includes tariffs. For good reason. That provision, which states that “[n]o action shall be taken” to “decrease or eliminate” an existing “duty or other import restriction,” 19 U. S. C. § 1862(a) (1970 ed.), concerns only the power to reduce existing tariffs and plainly does not bear on a President's power to impose tariffs under Section 232.
To sum up on the Nixon and Ford tariffs: When enacting IEEPA in 1977, Congress employed the exact language recently invoked by President Nixon to justify 10 percent worldwide tariffs. And IEEPA came fast on the heels of this Court's unanimous 1976 decision in Algonquin, which held that substantially similar “adjust the imports” language authorized President Ford's tariffs on oil imports. Importantly, moreover, the statutory provisions authorizing the Nixon and Ford tariffs did not use specifc words such as “tariff ” or “duty.”
The Nixon and Ford tariffs, this Court's decision in Algon quin, and the ordinary and historical understanding of tariffs as a means of regulating imports together render it all but impossible to conclude that Congress in 1977 implicitly excluded tariffs when retaining TWEA's “regulate . . . importation” language in IEEPA. If Congress in 1977 wanted to exclude tariffs from the President's IEEPA toolkit, either it would have not retained the phrase “regulate . . . importation,” or it would otherwise have made clear in IEEPA that the power to impose tariffs was excluded. Congress did neither.
C
Two additional historical points strongly reinforce that analysis of text and precedent and further demonstrate that “regulate . . . importation” in IEEPA encompasses tariffs. First, U. S. history from the 1800s through IEEPA's 1977 enactment illustrates how the statute came to incorporate the President's long-recognized authority to impose tariffs Page Proof Pending Publication during wartime and then also during peacetime national emergencies.
Long before the initial 1917 enactment of the Trading with the Enemy Act, which was IEEPA's predecessor, the President possessed inherent wartime authority to prohibit commercial relations with enemy nations. That inherent authority included the power to impose tariffs on foreign imports.
For example, during the Mexican-American War in the 1840s, President Polk permitted only limited trade with Mexico, subject to tariffs. Some Members of Congress publicly questioned whether the President possessed that tariff authority. In response, President Polk justifed the tariffs on the ground that “the military right to exclude commerce altogether from the ports of the enemy in our military occupation included the minor right of admitting it under prescribed conditions.” J. Polk, To the House of Representatives of the United States (Jan. 2, 1849), in 6 Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents 2522, 2523 (J. Richardson ed. 1897).
In 1854, the Supreme Court agreed with President Polk's view, stating: “No one can doubt” that the President, as “commander-in-chief of our naval force,” possessed the authority to “regulate import duties.” Cross v. Harrison, 16 How. 164, 189–190.
In 1862, President Lincoln partially lifted an existing blockade against the Confederate States during the Civil War. Like President Polk, he then permitted limited trade, subject to a monetary fee. A group of cotton sellers later sued, arguing that the fee “was essentially a tax and not authorized by any act of Congress, which alone had the power to impose taxes.” Hamilton v. Dillin, 21 Wall. 73, 81 (1875). The Supreme Court rejected that argument, holding that there was “no question” that requiring a monetary fee to trade with the Confederate States was part of “the war power of the United States government.” Id., at Page Proof Pending Publication LEARNING RESOURCES, INC. v. TRUMP 86–87. The existence of war meant “a suspension of commercial intercourse between the opposing sections of the country,” so if “such a course of dealing were to be permitted at all, it would necessarily be upon such conditions as the government chose to prescribe.” Id., at 87.
And in 1898, during the Spanish-American War, President McKinley imposed duties “upon the occupation of any forts and places in the Philippine Islands.” Lincoln v. United States, 197 U. S. 419, 428 (1905) (quotation marks omitted). This Court subsequently recognized those McKinley duties as a lawful wartime measure. Id., at 427–428.
Why does that wartime history matter? Because when Congress frst enacted the Trading with the Enemy Act in 1917 during World War I, it statutorily codifed some of the President's longstanding inherent wartime powers over foreign trade, which included the power to tariff. See Trading with the Enemy Act, ch. 106, 40 Stat. 411; see also Brief for Professor Aditya Bamzai as Amicus Curiae 16–19, 26–27.
For the duration of World War I, TWEA authorized the President, when he found “the public safety so requires,” to make it unlawful “to import into the United States” from any “named” country certain goods “except at such time or times, and under such regulations or orders, and subject to such limitations and exceptions as the President shall prescribe.” § 11, 40 Stat. 422–423.
In 1933, during the Great Depression and fve days after President Franklin Roosevelt took offce, Congress expanded TWEA to apply not only in wartime, but also during a “national emergency” declared by the President. 48 Stat. 1.
Eight years later, in 1941, a few days after Pearl Harbor, Congress again amended TWEA's language by more succinctly providing that the President may “regulate” certain transactions, including “importation,” under TWEA during war or “any other period of national emergency declared by the President.” 55 Stat. 839.
Page Proof Pending Publication So as of 1941—and from then to 1977—TWEA expressly authorized the President to “regulate . . . importation” both during wartime and during peacetime national emergencies. Historically, Presidents had regulated importation by imposing tariffs, as the Polk, Lincoln, and McKinley tariffs illustrated. So TWEA from 1941 to 1977 was best understood to authorize tariffs. See Brief for Professor Aditya Bamzai as Amicus Curiae 27–28.
During that period, as I have discussed at length above, President Nixon in 1971 imposed 10 percent tariffs on almost all imports of foreign goods and relied on TWEA's “regulate . . . importation” language to justify them. Those tariffs were upheld in court.
Then, in 1977, Congress amended TWEA and divided it into two statutes. TWEA retained the President's power to “regulate . . . importation,” but only during wartime. The newly enacted second law, IEEPA, also retained the power to “regulate . . . importation,” and it would apply during periods of declared national emergencies. As this Court has previously recognized, IEEPA was “directly drawn” from TWEA, and the relevant authorities are essentially the same. Dames & Moore v. Regan, 453 U. S. 654, 671, 672– 673 (1981).
Therefore, IEEPA's specifc language—“regulate . . . importation”—was not new statutory text when Congress enacted IEEPA in 1977. Far from it. Beginning in 1941, TWEA had already authorized the President to “regulate . . . importation” of foreign goods in wartime and national emergencies. And the earlier Polk, Lincoln, and McKinley examples, as well as the later Nixon example, demonstrated that the power to “regulate . . . importation” historically encompassed tariffs as well as quotas and embargoes.
The plaintiffs and the Court today assert that wartime precedents do not govern peacetime. But Congress modeled IEEPA on TWEA precisely so that the President could Page Proof Pending Publication LEARNING RESOURCES, INC. v. TRUMP continue to exercise certain wartime authorities such as quotas, embargoes, and tariffs during peacetime national emergencies as well. Congress frst explicitly extended that wartime power to national emergencies in 1933, during the Franklin Roosevelt Administration. Cf. New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann, 285 U. S. 262, 306 (1932) (Brandeis, J., dissenting) (The Great Depression was “an emergency more serious than war”). And Congress has continued to authorize the President to exercise that power in both wartime and peacetime emergencies.
In short, Congress in 1977 enacted the same “regulate . . . importation” language that had long been understood to encompass tariffs.
Second, contrary to the tenor of the plaintiffs' and the Court's arguments here, it would not have been at all unusual or surprising for Congress, when enacting IEEPA in 1977, to authorize the President to impose tariffs. Since the early days of the Republic, Congress has regularly granted the President the power to regulate foreign trade, including via tariffs.
A few examples: In 1810, Congress authorized the President to prohibit imports from Great Britain or France if either nation violated the neutral commerce of the United States. Cargo of Brig Aurora v. United States, 7 Cranch 382, 382–384, 388 (1813); 2 Stat. 606.
In 1890, Congress granted the President the power to impose import duties in response to duties imposed by other countries on American exports. Marshall Field & Co. v. Clark, 143 U. S. 649, 680–681 (1892); 26 Stat. 612.
In 1922, Congress empowered the President to levy import duties under certain conditions. J. W. Hampton, Jr., & Co. v. United States, 276 U. S. 394, 400–402 (1928); 42 Stat. 941. In 1930, Congress enacted Section 338 of the Tariff Act, which authorizes the President to impose tariffs when he fnds that “any foreign country places any burden or disadPage Proof Pending Publication vantage upon the commerce of the United States.” 19 U. S. C. § 1338(d); 46 Stat. 705.
In 1962, Congress authorized the President in Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act to “adjust the imports” of a foreign good that threatens to impair national security.
§ 1862(c)(1)(A); 76 Stat. 877.
In 1974, under Section 201 of the Trade Act, Congress granted the President the power to “take all appropriate and feasible action within his power,” including imposing a “duty” on imports that, according to the U. S. International Trade Commission, have caused or threatened “serious injury” to a domestic industry. §§ 2251(a), 2253(a)(1)(A), (3)(A); 88 Stat. 2014–2015.
So too, Section 301 authorizes the President to direct the U. S. Trade Representative to “impose duties” on countries engaging in unfair trade practices. §§ 2411(a), (c)(1)(B); 88 Stat. 2041–2042.
And Section 122 of the Act grants the President the power to impose a “temporary import surcharge” to “deal with large and serious United States balance-of-payments defcits.” § 2132(a)(1)(A); 88 Stat. 1987–1988.
Those many statutes defnitively establish that Congress, since near the Founding, has delegated to the President broad power to impose tariffs on foreign imports. See also ante, at 325–327 (Thomas, J., dissenting). So it would hardly have been unusual or surprising for Congress to have granted tariff power to the President during wartime and peacetime national emergencies, as it did in TWEA and IEEPA.
To be sure, given those other statutes that authorize the President to impose tariffs on foreign imports, one might reasonably ask: Why did the President need distinct tariff authority under IEEPA during peacetime emergencies—or, for that matter, under TWEA during wartime?
The basic answer is that IEEPA is an emergency statute that allows the President to impose tariffs somewhat more Page Proof Pending Publication LEARNING RESOURCES, INC. v. TRUMP quickly, as would be expected in a declared national emergency. Similarly, in wartime, TWEA allows the President to impose tariffs more rapidly.
But critically, TWEA and IEEPA do not authorize the President to exercise some new substantive power. Rather, they authorize the President to exercise a commonly granted power—tariffs—more effciently than under the many ordinary tariff statutes.
The plaintiffs and the Court assert that interpreting IEEPA to authorize tariffs would in effect evade specifc limits on tariffs in certain other tariff statutes. But as Judge Taranto explained in the Federal Circuit, Congress in IEEPA understandably afforded the President more fexibility to act during declared emergencies, just as Congress had done in TWEA for wartime since 1917. See 149 F. 4th 1312, 1363–1366 (2025) (dissenting opinion).
Moreover, IEEPA is not a blank check. IEEPA contains its own limits, including the requirement that the tariffs deal with an unusual and extraordinary foreign threat, 50 U. S. C. § 1701(b); a default 1-year limit on emergencies, § 1622(d); an enumerated list of exceptions, § 1702(b); and comprehensive congressional reporting requirements, § 1703. And as noted above, each House of Congress possesses a variety of tools to revoke, limit, or infuence a President's IEEPA or TWEA tariffs.
Relatedly, it is also not surprising that the many ordinary tariff statutes expressly refer to “tariffs,” “duties,” and the like, while IEEPA and TWEA do not. As Judge Taranto astutely explained, “Congress in those statutes was overwhelmingly focused on tariff issues,” whereas “Congress in IEEPA (as in TWEA) was focused on the subject of emergencies and giving plainly broad emergency authority regarding foreign property.” 149 F. 4th, at 1364 (dissenting opinion).
In sum, in authorizing the President to “regulate . . . importation,” IEEPA embodies an “eyes-open congressional Page Proof Pending Publication grant of broad emergency authority in this foreign-affairs realm, which unsurprisingly extends beyond authorities available under non-emergency laws, and Congress confrmed the understood breadth by tying IEEPA's authority to particularly demanding procedural requirements for keeping Congress informed.” Id., at 1348.
D
Finally, all of that text, history, and precedent is further reinforced by two compelling pieces of context.
First, interpreting IEEPA to exclude tariffs creates nonsensical textual and practical anomalies. The plaintiffs and the Court do not dispute that the President can act in declared emergencies under IEEPA to impose quotas or even total embargoes on all imports from a given country. But the President supposedly cannot take the far more modest step of conditioning those imports on payment of a tariff or duty. Textually, however, if quotas and embargoes are a means to regulate importation, how are tariffs not a means to regulate importation? Nothing in the text supports such an illogical distinction.
And it does not make much sense to think that IEEPA allows the President in a declared national emergency to, for example, shut off all or most imports from China, but not to impose even a $1 tariff on imports from China. As Judge Taranto forcefully pointed out in the Federal Circuit, tariffs are “just a less extreme, more fexible tool for pursuing the same objective of controlling the amount or price of imports that, after all, could be barred altogether.” 149 F. 4th, at 1363 (dissenting opinion). All of that explains why this Court in Algonquin defnitively rejected such a strange slice-and-dice approach to the President's statutory power to “adjust” imports. If quotas and embargoes are authorized, so are tariffs.
In short, whether through prohibiting imports via embargoes or regulating the quantity of imports through quotas Page Proof Pending Publication LEARNING RESOURCES, INC. v. TRUMP or regulating the price of imports with tariffs, Congress granted the President fexibility in declared national emergencies to take various actions affecting imports of foreign goods. The plaintiffs and the Court have no coherent textual or commonsensical explanation for why a rational Congress would, in such a momentous and carefully considered statute as IEEPA, grant the President the power to impose quotas and embargoes, but not tariffs, on foreign imports during emergencies.
Second, IEEPA was not debated and passed in a vacuum in 1977—it was enacted around the same time that Congress signifcantly constrained executive power in multiple ways in the wake of Watergate and Vietnam. The list of major new statutory restrictions on Presidential power enacted in the 1970s is long and extraordinary, with lasting effects to the present day.14 And Congress, during that comprehensive examination and recalibration of government power, did not overlook TWEA and the President's emergency authorities. Led by Senators Church and Mathias, Congress carefully studied the President's emergency authorities, including TWEA. Then, in 1976 and 1977, Congress enacted a variety of legislation to tighten up the President's emergency powers, including by passing a new National Emergencies Act that cabined the President's authority to declare emergencies by setting forth various procedural requirements.
14See, e. g., Ethics in Government Act of 1978, 92 Stat. 1824, reenacted at5 U. S. C. §13101 et seq.; Inspector General Act of 1978, 92 Stat. 1101, reenacted at 5 U. S. C. § 401 et seq.; Presidential Records Act of 1978, 92 Stat. 2523, as amended, 44 U. S. C. § 2201 et seq.; Federal Advisory Committee Act, 86 Stat. 770, as amended, 5 U. S. C. § 1001 et seq.; Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, 92 Stat. 1783, as amended, 50 U. S. C. § 1801 et seq.; Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, 88 Stat. 297, as amended, 2 U. S. C. § 621 et seq.; 1974 Amendments to the Freedom of Information Act, 88 Stat. 1561, as amended, 5 U. S. C. § 552; War Powers Resolution, 87 Stat. 555, 50 U. S. C. § 1541 et seq. Page Proof Pending Publication Yet when enacting IEEPA in 1977, Congress continued to grant the President the power to “regulate . . . importation” in declared national emergencies—a power that the President had possessed since 1941 under TWEA and that had recently been invoked by President Nixon to justify his 1971 tariffs. In IEEPA (and TWEA) in 1977, Congress consciously balanced concerns about expansive exercises of emergency powers against the necessity of equipping the President with tools to address exigencies that are diffcult if not impossible to foresee. That broader congressional context—general skepticism and scaling back of executive power combined with re-enactment of the familiar “regulate . . . importation” language in IEEPA—strongly indicates that Congress said what it meant and meant what it said when it enacted IEEPA and continued to authorize the President to “regulate . . . importation” during national emergencies.
III
In an ordinary statutory interpretation case, I am confdent that a majority of this Court would fatly reject the plaintiffs' exceedingly weak statutory arguments and would hold that IEEPA's authorization for the President to “regulate . . . importation” during national emergencies includes the power to impose tariffs.
Notably, the Court today does not claim that the phrase “regulate . . . importation” on its own excludes tariffs as a matter of ordinary statutory meaning. Only three Members of the Court, Justice Sotomayor, Justice Kagan, and Justice Jackson, do so.
The Chief Justice's opinion in Part II–A–2, which is joined only by Justice Gorsuch and Justice Barrett, instead relies on the major questions doctrine. The major questions doctrine is an important canon of statutory interpretation that the Court has applied in a number of signifcant cases over the last 45 years. See Industrial Union Page Proof Pending Publication LEARNING RESOURCES, INC. v. TRUMP Dept., AFL–CIO v. American Petroleum Institute, 448 U. S. 607, 645 (1980) (plurality opinion).
Justice Scalia articulated the canonical statement of the major questions doctrine: “We expect Congress to speak clearly if it wishes to assign to an agency decisions of vast `economic and political signifcance.' ” Utility Air Regula tory Group v. EPA, 573 U. S. 302, 324 (2014) (quoting FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 529 U. S. 120, 160 (2000)); see also Alabama Assn. of Realtors v. Department of Health and Human Servs., 594 U. S. 758, 764 (2021) (per curiam); National Federation of Independent Business v. OSHA, 595 U. S. 109, 117 (2022) (per curiam); Biden v. Ne braska, 600 U. S. 477, 507 (2023); cf. West Virginia v. EPA, 597 U. S. 697, 723 (2022).
Stated otherwise, in cases where the Executive Branch takes an action of major economic and political signifcance, it must “point to `clear congressional authorization' for the power it claims.” Ibid. (quoting Utility Air, 573 U. S., at 324). The requirement of “clear congressional authorization” for executive actions of major economic and political signifcance is “grounded in two overlapping and reinforcing presumptions: (i) a separation of powers-based presumption against the delegation of major lawmaking authority from Congress to the Executive Branch, and (ii) a presumption that Congress intends to make major policy decisions itself, not leave those decisions to agencies.” United States Telecom Assn. v. FCC, 855 F. 3d 381, 419 (CADC 2017) (Kavanaugh, J., dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc) (citation omitted). As this Court later recounted in West Virginia, “both separation of powers principles and a practical understanding of legislative intent make us reluctant to read into ambiguous statutory text the delegation claimed to be lurking there.” 597 U. S., at 723 (quotation marks omitted).15 The doctrine 15The major questions doctrine has also been analogized to, among other things, the mischief rule, the absurdity doctrine, common sense, and context. See, e. g., S. Bray, The Mischief Rule, 109 Geo. L. J. 967, 1011 (2021) Page Proof Pending Publication guards “against unintentional, oblique, or otherwise unlikely delegations of the legislative power.” NFIB, 595 U. S., at 125 (Gorsuch, J., concurring).16 I agree that this case involves an executive action of major economic and political signifcance—which is typically the trigger for requiring “clear congressional authorization.” But in my respectful view, The Chief Justice's opinion's application of the major questions doctrine in this case is incorrect for two alternative and independent reasons.
First, the statutory text, history, and precedent constitute “clear congressional authorization” for the President to impose tariffs as a means to “regulate . . . importation.” Second, and in the alternative, the major questions doctrine does not apply in the foreign affairs context. In the foreign affairs realm, courts recognize that Congress often deliberately grants fexibility and discretion to the President to pursue America's interests. In that context, courts therefore engage in “routine” textualist statutory interpretation— reading the text as written—and do not employ the major questions doctrine as a thumb on the scale against the President. West Virginia, 597 U. S., at 724.
A
Because the major questions doctrine demands “clear congressional authorization,” this Court has repeatedly recognized that the doctrine is “distinct” from “routine statutory (doctrine “has an essential similarity with the mischief rule”); Biden v. Nebraska, 600 U. S. 477, 511 (2023) (Barrett, J., concurring) (context, common sense).
16I have long been, and fully remain, a strong proponent of the major questions doctrine. See United States Telecom, 855 F. 3d, at 418–426 (opinion of Kavanaugh, J.); Loving v. IRS, 742 F. 3d 1013, 1021 (CADC 2014); Coalition for Responsible Regulation, Inc. v. EPA, No. 9–1322 (CADC, Dec. 20, 2012), pp. 9–10 (Kavanaugh, J., dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc).
Page Proof Pending Publication LEARNING RESOURCES, INC. v. TRUMP interpretation.” West Virginia, 597 U. S., at 724 (quotation marks omitted). Importantly, therefore, the doctrine applies—and makes a meaningful difference—only in cases where the Executive's “reading of a statute” “would, under more ordinary circumstances, be upheld.” Ibid. (quotation marks omitted); see also id., at 740, 742, n. 3 (Gorsuch, J., concurring); M. Sohoni, The Major Questions Quartet, 136 Harv. L. Rev. 262, 272–276 (2022).
To properly set up the inquiry: A major questions issue arises when: (i) the Executive relies on the text of a generally worded statute to exercise a specifc power of major economic and political signifcance; (ii) the generally worded statute does not explicitly mention the specifc major power, but (iii) the asserted major power falls within the generally worded text of the statute such that the Executive's assertion of that power “would, under more ordinary circumstances, be upheld,” West Virginia, 597 U. S., at 724 (majority opinion) (quotation marks omitted).17 The question then is whether the generally worded statute supplies “clear congressional authorization” for the Executive to exercise that specifc—but not explicitly mentioned— major power. Here, for example, does the generally worded statutory authorization for the President to “regulate . . . importation” clearly authorize the President to impose tariffs?
The requirement of “clear congressional authorization” is easy enough to state. But how do we apply it? How do we decide in a particular case whether a generally worded statute actually constitutes “clear congressional authorization” for a major power that otherwise falls within the general terms?
17Of course, if the major power does not fall within the generally worded text as a matter of ordinary statutory interpretation, the major questions doctrine is not implicated or necessary to apply because the Government's statutory argument fails to begin with.
Page Proof Pending Publication For starters, and critically, the Court has repeatedly emphasized that the major questions doctrine is not a magic words requirement. In other words, the doctrine does not require an explicit reference to the specifc major power itself. As the Court's cases amply demonstrate, the major questions doctrine does not “forc[e] Congress to delegate in highly specifc terms.” Biden v. Nebraska, 600 U. S., at 516 (Barrett, J., concurring) (quotation marks omitted).
Rather than require magic words (such as the words “tariff ” or “duty” here), the Court's cases have focused on four somewhat overlapping factors or considerations in order to assess whether a generally worded statute constitutes “clear congressional authorization” for the specifc major power.18 First, the major questions doctrine's most prominent work has been to ensure that the Executive cannot suddenly seize on an old and generally worded statute to exercise a power of great economic and political signifcance when that power would not reasonably have been understood at the time of enactment to fall within that generally worded statute. See West Virginia, 597 U. S., at 720–735; Brown & Williamson, 529 U. S., at 159–161. As the Court has said: “When an agency claims to discover in a long-extant statute an unheralded power to regulate a signifcant portion of the American economy, we typically greet its announcement with a measure of skepticism.” Utility Air, 573 U. S., at 324 (citation and quotation marks omitted); West Virginia, 597 U. S., at 748 (Gorsuch, J., concurring).
The doctrine thus precludes an agency's attempt to effectuate “a fundamental revision of the statute.” MCI Tele communications Corp. v. American Telephone & Telegraph 18Both Justice Gorsuch and Justice Barrett have likewise read the Court's precedents to identify those same four factors, as they explained in their incisive separate opinions in West Virginia v. EPA and Biden v. Nebraska, respectively. See 597 U. S. 697, 746–749 (2022) (Gorsuch, J., concurring) (referring to the four “telling clues”); 600 U. S., at 517–520 (Barrett, J., concurring); see also ante, at 281 (Gorsuch, J., concurring). Page Proof Pending Publication LEARNING RESOURCES, INC. v. TRUMP Co., 512 U. S. 218, 231 (1994). Stated otherwise, an “agency's attempt to deploy an old statute focused on one problem to solve a new and different problem” may be “a warning sign that it is acting without clear congressional authority.” West Virginia, 597 U. S., at 747 (Gorsuch, J., concurring). The Court's skepticism about major executive action in those scenarios has been heightened when Congress has “conspicuously and repeatedly declined to enact” legislation that would have authorized the executive action in question. Id., at 724 (majority opinion).
A prototypical example occurred when OSHA, in order to justify a nationwide COVID–19 vaccine mandate for workers, relied “on a statutory provision that was adopted 40 years before the pandemic and that focused on conditions specifc to the workplace.” Id.,at 747(Gorsuch, J., concurring). Another example arose when EPA invoked “newfound authority to regulate” emissions from “millions of small sources—including retail stores, offces, apartment buildings, shopping centers, schools, and churches.” Utility Air, 573 U. S., at 328. Yet another happened when the CDC tried to impose an eviction moratorium for rental housing through an “unprecedented” assertion of its authority to regulate public health. Alabama Assn. of Realtors, 594 U. S., at 765.
Second, courts examine the “agency's past interpretations of the relevant statute.” West Virginia, 597 U. S., at 747 (Gorsuch, J., concurring). The Executive's “track record can be particularly probative” in the major questions context. Biden v. Nebraska, 600 U. S., at 519 (Barrett, J., concurring).
A “contemporaneous and long-held Executive Branch interpretation of a statute is entitled to some weight.” West Virginia, 597 U. S., at 747 (Gorsuch, J., concurring) (quotation marks omitted). Just “as established practice may shed light on the extent of power conveyed by general statutory language, so the want of assertion of power by those who Page Proof Pending Publication presumably would be alert to exercise it, is equally signifcant in determining whether such power was actually conferred.” Id., at 725 (majority opinion) (quotation marks omitted).
The NFIB Court therefore found it critical that “OSHA, in its half century of existence, has never before adopted a broad public health regulation of this kind” under the statute that the agency sought to invoke as authority for the vaccine mandate. 595 U. S., at 119. Likewise, in Brown & Wil liamson, the FDA had “repeatedly and consistently as- sert[ed] that it lacks jurisdiction under the FDCA to regulate tobacco products.” 529 U. S., at 156. And in West Virginia, EPA had not “previously interpreted the relevant provision to confer on it such vast authority” to transform American industry.
597 U. S., at 749 (Gorsuch, J., concurring).
Third, courts assess whether “there is a mismatch between an agency's challenged action and its congressionally assigned mission and expertise,” id., at 748 (Gorsuch, J., concurring)—in other words, whether an agency is trying to regulate “outside its wheelhouse,” Biden v. Nebraska, 600 U. S., at 518 (Barrett, J., concurring).
In the NFIB case, OSHA, which is empowered to “set workplace safety standards, not broad public health measures,” mandated COVID–19 vaccines. 595 U. S., at 117. In Alabama Assn. of Realtors, the CDC—a public health agency—attempted to regulate housing. 594 U. S., at 763– 765. In Gonzales v. Oregon, the Attorney General sought to assert authority over the drugs used in physician-assisted suicide. 546 U. S. 243, 267–268 (2006).
All of those cases involved serious mismatches between the agency's usual regulatory activities and its asserted major power.
Fourth, the Court looks at whether the relevant statutory language used to justify the Executive's exercise of a major power is “oblique,” “elliptical,” or “cryptic.” West Virginia, Page Proof Pending Publication Page Proof Pending Publication LEARNING RESOURCES, INC. v. TRUMP 597 U. S., at 746–747 (Gorsuch, J., concurring) (alterations and quotation marks omitted). As the Court has often said, Congress does not “hide elephants” in statutory “mouseholes.” Whitman v. American Trucking Assns., Inc., 531 U. S. 457, 468 (2001).
In MCI Telecommunications Corp., for example, the Court refused to allow the FCC to eliminate rate regulation and fundamentally overhaul the telecommunications industry based on a “subtle” provision that merely permitted the FCC to “modify” rate-fling requirements. 512 U. S., at 231 (quotation marks omitted). In Brown & Williamson, the Court rejected the FDA's attempt to regulate the tobacco industry based on a “cryptic” statutory provision that referred to “safety.” 529 U. S., at 160 (quotation marks omitted). In Gonzales, the Court said that Congress would not have granted the Attorney General the power to regulate physician-assisted suicide through “oblique” statutory language. 546 U. S., at 267. And in West Virginia, the Court found it unlikely that Congress would have granted major power to reshape the energy industry in a “previously little- used backwater” of the statute. 597 U. S., at 730.
So in this case we must apply those four factors in order to determine whether Congress, when it afforded the President the power to “regulate . . . importation,” clearly authorized the President to impose tariffs. As I see it, those factors show that Congress clearly authorized tariffs in IEEPA when it empowered the President to “regulate . . . importation.” First, unlike the OSHA vaccine mandate in NFIB or the greenhouse gas regulation in Utility Air, for example, the President here is not exercising an “unheralded” or “newfound authority” based on a “long-extant” statute—that is, exercising a power that was unanticipated or unforeseen when Congress enacted IEEPA's “regulate . . . importation” language in 1977.
On the contrary, as was fully explained above, the tariff authority exercised here is not remotely “unheralded.” To recap: Any citizen or Member of Congress who paid the least bit of attention in 1977 would have readily understood that the President's authority to “regulate . . . importation” encompassed the power to tariff. There are the dictionary defnitions and the historical usage and practice. And among other things, just a few years before IEEPA, that “regulate . . . importation” language was invoked by President Nixon and judicially approved to sustain his 10 percent worldwide tariffs. President Ford then implemented signifcant tariffs using substantially similar “adjust the imports” statutory language, and this Court unanimously upheld President Ford's tariffs in Algonquin.
So IEEPA's grant of authority to the President to impose tariffs in order to regulate importation is not “unheralded” or “newfound.” That authority was plain as day in 1977.19 Second, the President is not interpreting the “regulate . . . importation” language in IEEPA differently from how past Presidents have interpreted it. At least as far as the briefng and arguments in this case have disclosed, no Presi19The Court downplays the signifcance of the prominent Nixon and Ford tariffs. Ante, at 252–254 (majority opinion); ante, at 281–282, 293 (Gorsuch, J., concurring). But the Nixon and Ford examples, as well as Algonquin, are critical for a proper and full understanding of the meaning of “regulate . . . importation” when Congress enacted IEEPA in 1977. We cannot ignore or diminish that history. The Chief Justice's opinion and Justice Gorsuch's concurrence also say that no President since 1977 has invoked IEEPA to impose tariffs. Ante, at 245 (opinion of Roberts, C. J.); ante, at 281–282 (Gorsuch, J., concurring). But since 1977, Presidents have imposed numerous tariffs under non-emergency tariff stat- utes—including Section 232, which like IEEPA also does not explicitly reference tariffs or taxes. The fact that recent Presidents have not often had occasion under the National Emergencies Act to declare national emergencies in which tariffs would help “deal with” the specifc emergency at issue does not mean that Presidents have now lost the authority exercised by President Nixon to impose tariffs. IEEPA was not designed as a use-it-or-lose-it source of emergency authority.
Page Proof Pending Publication Page Proof Pending Publication LEARNING RESOURCES, INC. v. TRUMP dential Administration since the enactment of the “regulate . . . importation” language in TWEA in 1941 or since its re-enactment in IEEPA in 1977 has interpreted the statute to exclude the power to impose tariffs. Moreover, before IEEPA's enactment, President Nixon imposed tariffs based on the same “regulate . . . importation” language. And in 1975, President Ford invoked authority to “adjust the imports” in order to similarly impose monetary exactions. In addition—if more is needed—Marshall, Story, Madison, and this Court have all long recognized that the power to regulate foreign commerce includes tariffs.
The current President's reading of IEEPA follows from and is entirely consistent with those past interpretations— making his position nothing like, for example, FDA's when it changed its longstanding position that it lacked the authority to regulate cigarettes, Brown & Williamson, 529 U. S., at 159–160, or OSHA's when it implemented a vaccine requirement even though it had “never before adopted a broad public health regulation of this kind,” NFIB, 595 U. S., at 119. When, as here, “established practice,” West Virginia, 597 U. S., at 725 (quotation marks omitted), and the Executive's “track record,” Biden v. Nebraska, 600 U. S., at 519 (Barstatutory language has long been understood to cover the specifc power asserted by the Executive, that record should all but resolve the matter for major questions purposes.
Third, there is no mismatch: The power to tariff falls squarely within the President's wheelhouse. From the Founding, as The Chief Justice’s opinion today acknowledges, numerous other statutes have afforded—and still do afford—the President broad power to impose tariffs. Ante, at 243–244. This case is entirely different, therefore, from our prior major questions cases, where, for example, the CDC attempted to impose an eviction moratorium, Alabama Assn. of Realtors, 594 U. S., at 763–765; OSHA sought to implement a nationwide vaccine mandate, NFIB, 595 U. S., at 117–120; the FDA tried to regulate cigarettes, Brown & Williamson, 529 U. S., at 159–161; and the Attorney General attempted to regulate physician-assisted suicide, Gonzales, 546 U. S., at 267–268.
Presidents imposing tariffs—whether pursuant to inherent wartime authority, pursuant to TWEA and IEEPA's “regulate . . . importation” language, pursuant to Section 232's “adjust the imports” text, or pursuant to the many other tariff statutory authorities—is hardly an unusual occurrence in our Nation's history or in recent times. For example, Presidents George W. Bush, Obama, and Biden all imposed tariffs pursuant to congressional authorization.
There is no mismatch between the tariff power and the President's “mission and expertise.” West Virginia, 597 U. S., at 748 (Gorsuch, J., concurring).
Fourth, the President is not relying on oblique, elliptical, or cryptic language. This case does not involve “elephants in mouseholes.” Whitman, 531 U. S., at 468. This case instead involves an elephant (tariffs) in a statutory elephant hole (the power to “regulate . . . importation” to deal with foreign threats in national emergencies). IEEPA was a major and thoroughly studied statute carefully crafted to grant the President a suite of powerful tools, including to “regulate . . . importation,” and thereby allow him to respond swiftly to national emergencies and to help America respond to crises. Since its enactment, Presidents have invoked IEEPA more than 70 times to deal with emergencies and threats from the September 11, 2001, al Qaeda attacks to Iran to North Korea, and many others. See Congressional Research Service, The International Emergency Economic Powers Act: Origins, Evolution, and Use 18–32 (2025).
By 1977, moreover, it was well-known that tariffs on foreign imports—along with even more powerful tools such as quotas and embargoes—were a common way to “regulate . . . importation.” IEEPA thus bears zero resemblance to the paradigmatic “previously little-used backwater” statutory Page Proof Pending Publication Page Proof Pending Publication LEARNING RESOURCES, INC. v. TRUMP provision that cannot support signifcant executive actions. West Virginia, 597 U. S., at 730.
All of that makes this case dramatically different from— really, the opposite of—the major questions cases where the Court has ruled against the Government. The text, the history, the context, and the precedent all point strongly to the conclusion that as of 1977, tariffs were a well-recognized means of regulating importation, like quotas and embargoes. As Judge Taranto persuasively summarized, this case bears none of the hallmarks of past major questions cases where the Court found a lack of clear congressional authorization for the Government's asserted major power.
IEEPA's “facial breadth in an emergency context makes the straightforward application of the statute's words hardly unheralded, and if a more specifc herald is needed, it is present in the [Nixon] 1971 proclamation, Yoshida CCPA, and subsequent congressional adoption of the relevant language in 1977.” 149 F. 4th 1312, 1376 (CA Fed. 2025) (dissenting opinion) (citations omitted). IEEPA seeks “to provide fexibility in the tools available to the President to address the unusual and extraordinary threats specifed in a declared national emergency. This is not an `ancillary,' `little used backwater' provision, or a delegation outside the recipient's wheelhouse.” Ibid. (citation omitted).
This Court's recent decision in Biden v. Missouri, 595 U. S. 87 (2022) (per curiam), strongly supports the President's position here. That case involved a challenge to President Biden's COVID–19 vaccine requirement for millions of healthcare workers. The executive action there, too, was undoubtedly major. But the Court upheld the Government's vaccine mandate based on a general statutory authorization for HHS to impose safety requirements for healthcare facilities—notwithstanding the lack of explicit statutory reference to vaccines. Id., at 90–96. In doing so, the Court emphasized that state vaccination requirements were common for healthcare workers and that the Federal Government regularly required healthcare workers to take various safety precautions. Id., at 94–95. Notably, the Court upheld the vaccine mandate even though (as the dissenters pointed out) the Federal Government had not traditionally imposed such vaccine requirements on healthcare workers. See id., at 104 (Thomas, J., dissenting).
The clarity of the congressional authorization in today's case is far stronger than in Biden v. Missouri. The Nixon and Ford tariffs, the Algonquin decision, and the President's longstanding authority to regulate trade and impose tariffs establish—much more comprehensively and clearly than in Biden v. Missouri—that the President is not claiming some “unheralded power” that represents a “transformative expansion” of his authority. Utility Air, 573 U. S., at 324.
Because the Court upheld the Executive's exercise of a major power in Biden v. Missouri, it follows that the Court today should likewise uphold the President's assertion of a major power here. Like cases should be treated alike.
In response to all of that, The Chief Justice's opinion clings to its primary argument in this case—that a statute must use the word “tariff” or “duty” or “tax” or the like to authorize tariffs on foreign imports. But this Court has repeatedly emphasized that the major questions doctrine is not a magic words requirement. The Chief Justice's opinion identifes no case that has demanded such specifcity. And in Algonquin, this Court unanimously and squarely rejected the same argument that the statutory provision must specifcally mention “tariffs” or “duties” or “taxes” for the President to impose tariffs on foreign imports. Under The Chief Justice's opinion, the Nixon and Ford tariffs would also have been unlawful. So too might other tariffs imposed under the longstanding Section 232 tariff statute, which broadly authorizes the President to “adjust the imports” of Page Proof Pending Publication Page Proof Pending Publication LEARNING RESOURCES, INC. v. TRUMP a foreign good without mentioning “tariffs” or “taxes.”
And so would tariffs imposed in wartime under TWEA's authority to “regulate . . . importation.” 20 The Chief Justice's opinion's approach to the major questions doctrine is a magic words test under another name—in contravention of our precedents that make clear that Congress need not use magic words or “highly specifc” terms. Biden v. Nebraska, 600 U. S., at 516 (Barrett, J., concurring) (quotation marks omitted).21 In previous cases, the Court has looked at the four factors to determine whether there is “clear congressional authorization” precisely because the major questions canon has no magic words requirement. If magic words or the equivalent were necessary, that would be the only factor. And the Court would not need the four factors that the Court has consistently applied.22 20Under the Court's decision today, the President's authority to impose tariffs under TWEA during wartime is presumably now gone given that TWEA has the same “regulate . . . importation” language, 50 U. S. C. § 4305(b)(1)(B)—unless the Court thinks that the statutory text somehow means one thing in TWEA and another in IEEPA, which would be historically inaccurate and textually unsupportable. One might think that the Court's opinion would also mean that tariffs cannot be imposed under Section 232, which authorizes the President to “adjust the imports.” After all, that statutory provision likewise does not refer to “tariffs,” duties,” “taxes,” “fees,” or the like. But in Algonquin, the Court read Section 232 to authorize tariffs. I assume that the Court today does not intend to overrule Algonquin.
21Taken at face value, moreover, the Court's major questions analysis would presumably also preclude Presidents from imposing quotas under IEEPA. Quotas are justifed under the same “regulate . . . importation” language. How could the Court distinguish quotas from tariffs for major questions purposes? After all, quotas can be of even greater economic and political signifcance than tariffs.
22In his concurrence, Justice Gorsuch opines that the phrase “monetary exactions on foreign imports” would constitute clear congressional authorization, but that the phrase “regulate . . . importation” does not. Ante, at 284. But if the phrase “regulate . . . importation” has historically and commonly encompassed “monetary exactions on foreign imports”—as Page Proof Pending Publication In sum, under the major questions doctrine as the Court has applied it, this should be a straightforward case. Congress supplied clear authorization for the President to impose tariffs under IEEPA.
B
Second, there is an alternative and independent reason why the major questions doctrine does not apply here: This is a foreign affairs case.
A plethora of statutes in the U. S. Code grant the Executive the power to act in foreign affairs. And most of the important actions that “presidents take today, including in foreign affairs, rest at least in part on statutory authorization.” C. Bradley & J. Goldsmith, Foreign Affairs, Nondelegation, and the Major Questions Doctrine, 172 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1743, 1745 (2024).
Yet this Court has never before applied the major questions doctrine—or anything resembling it—to a foreign affairs statute. I would not make this case the frst.
Rather, in the foreign affairs context, this Court has interpreted statutes as written, with respect for the primacy of Congress's and the President's roles in foreign affairs and without using the major questions doctrine as a thumb on the scale against the President. See, e. g., Department of Navy v. Egan, 484 U. S. 518, 529–530 (1988). That deeply rooted textualist approach to interpreting foreign affairs statutes is nothing new. What is new and rather extraordinary is the approach embodied in The Chief Justice's opinion for three Justices, which would extend the major questions doctrine into the foreign affairs realm for the frst time. Recall that the major questions doctrine is based on two overlapping foundations: “separation of powers principles it has—and if the four major questions factors taken together support the Executive—as they do—then I cannot agree with the line that Justice Gorsuch is drawing between those two formulations.
LEARNING RESOURCES, INC. v. TRUMP and a practical understanding of legislative intent.” West Virginia, 597 U. S., at 723.
With respect to separation of powers, the major questions doctrine serves to reinforce the nondelegation doctrine.
But in the foreign affairs realm, the Court has recognized that Congress often broadly delegates authority to the Executive. From the Founding, numerous foreign affairs statutes “authorizing action by the President in respect of subjects affecting foreign relations” either “leave the exercise of the power to his unrestricted judgment, or provide a standard far more general than that which has always been considered requisite with regard to domestic affairs.”
United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp., 299 U. S. 304, 324 (1936); Department of Transportation v. Association of American Railroads, 575 U. S. 43, 80, n. 5 (2015) (Thomas, J., concurring in judgment). The reason for those broad delegations is simple and obvious: If “success” for America's foreign affairs “aims” is to be “achieved, congressional legislation . . . must often accord to the President a degree of discretion and freedom from statutory restriction which would not be admissible were domestic affairs alone involved.” Curtiss-Wright, 299 U. S., at 320. Stated otherwise, “Congress—in giving the Executive authority over matters of foreign affairs—must of necessity paint with a brush broader than that it customarily wields in domestic areas.” Zemel v. Rusk, 381 U. S. 1, 17 (1965).
As Justice Robert Jackson summarized, the Court's non- delegation cases—consistent with the “unbroken legislative practice which has prevailed almost from the inception of the national government,” Curtiss-Wright, 299 U. S., at 322— have “recognized internal and external affairs as being in separate categories, and held that the strict limitation upon congressional delegations of power to the President over internal affairs does not apply with respect to delegations of power in external affairs.” Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U. S. 579, 636, n. 2 (1952) (concurring opinion); Page Proof Pending Publication see Curtiss-Wright, 299 U. S., at 319–322; Panama Refning Co. v. Ryan, 293 U. S. 388, 422 (1935).
As Justice Jackson further noted, the Court's precedents recognize the “ `unwisdom of requiring Congress in this feld of governmental power to lay down narrowly defnite standards by which the President is to be governed.' ” Youngs town, 343 U. S., at 636, n. 2 (concurring opinion) (quoting Curtiss-Wright, 299 U. S., at 321–322).
If the major questions doctrine is designed in part to protect nondelegation principles, but the nondelegation doctrine does not play a substantial role in foreign affairs cases (as the Court has held), then it follows that courts should not employ the major questions doctrine to put a thumb on the scale against the President when interpreting foreign affairs statutes. Rather, as Justice Robert Jackson stated, courts should interpret those statutes as written.
Relatedly, to the extent that the major questions doctrine is designed to refect a “practical understanding of legislative intent,” West Virginia, 597 U. S., at 723, the doctrine appropriately plays no role in “national security or foreign policy contexts, because the canon does not refect ordinary congressional intent in those areas.” FCC v. Consumers' Re search, 606 U. S. 656, 706 (2025) (Kavanaugh, J., concurring). In the foreign affairs realm, Congress “has good reason to— and intends to—authorize many executive branch actions related to foreign affairs in broad or general terms.”
Bradley & Goldsmith, 172 U. Pa. L. Rev., at 1793.
Congress ordinarily seeks “to give the President substantial authority and fexibility to protect America and the American people.” Consumers' Research, 606 U. S., at 706– 707 (Kavanaugh, J., concurring). After all, the President exercises the “vast share of responsibility for the conduct of our foreign relations.” American Ins. Assn. v. Garamendi, 539 U. S. 396, 414 (2003) (quotation marks omitted). So Congress “often” gives the President “a degree of discretion.” Curtiss-Wright, 299 U. S., at 320. That “unbroken legislaPage Proof Pending Publication LEARNING RESOURCES, INC. v. TRUMP tive practice” from the Founding means that courts interpreting statutes in the foreign affairs feld should assume that Congress meant what it said. Id., at 322.
Stated otherwise, “if the major questions doctrine turns on a contextual inquiry into likely congressional intent, it is likely for a variety of reasons to have less purchase in the foreign affairs area.” Bradley & Goldsmith, 172 U. Pa. L. Rev., at 1790.
To be clear, Congress of course maintains the ultimate power over how broadly or narrowly to write statutes in the foreign policy and national security contexts. For example, Congress can write foreign affairs statutes narrowly. Indeed, even for wartime powers, Congress rarely gives the President a “blank check.” Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U. S. 507, 536 (2004) (plurality opinion). And when Congress writes a narrow foreign affairs statute, this Court has enforced those statutory limits as written. Cf. Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U. S. 557, 593–595 (2006); id., at 638–639 (KenMoreover, when it does legislate more broadly, Congress sometimes claws back the statutory authorization by rescinding or amending overbroad statutes, or by restricting previously granted Presidential power through the leverage it possesses over appropriations, new legislation, or confrmations. See, e. g., Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, 92 Stat. 1783; Military Commissions Act of 2006, 120 Stat. 2600, as amended, 10 U. S. C. § 948a et seq.; Case-Church Amendment, Pub. L. 93–50, § 307, 87 Stat. 129. Either House of Congress alone, through the appropriations process, can insist on certain limits as a condition of approving funding. At the end of the day, given the appropriations power, Congress holds the cards.
In short, in the foreign affairs context, this Court has never before super-imposed the major questions doctrine (or any similar canon or principle) onto ordinary statutory interPage Proof Pending Publication pretation to place a thumb on the scale against the President. Rather, the Court interprets the relevant statutes according to their text, with respect for Congress's and the President's central roles in the foreign policy and national security felds. This tariffs case plainly falls into the foreign affairs category. IEEPA “directly and expressly relate[s] to foreign affairs.” Bradley & Goldsmith, 172 U. Pa. L. Rev., at 1796. And like quotas and embargoes, tariffs regulate the goods that are imported into the country from foreign nations.
The tariffs do not apply to goods produced in America.
Moreover, tariffs on foreign imports are signifcant tools of foreign policy and national security, whether imposed under IEEPA, TWEA, Section 232, Section 122, Section 201, Section 301, or Section 338. They are often used to “advance foreign policy goals, or as negotiating leverage in trade negotiations.” Congressional Research Service, U. S. Tariff Policy: Overview 1 (2025). Like other economic tools, tariffs can “serve as a `bargaining chip' to be used by the President when dealing with a hostile country,” Dames & Moore v. Regan, 453 U. S. 654, 673 (1981)—or to incentivize a change in behavior by allies, partners, or enemies. Cf. Association of American Railroads, 575 U. S., at 80 (opinion of Thomas, J.) (embargo statute “involved the external relations of the United States”); Gundy v. United States, 588 U. S. 128, 170– 171 (2019) (Gorsuch, J., dissenting).
With respect to foreign trade specifcally, Congress often “invest[s] the President with large discretion in matters arising out of the execution of statutes relating to trade and commerce with other nations.” Marshall Field & Co. v. Clark, 143 U. S. 649, 691 (1892). Since the Founding, that longstanding practice has included tariff statutes: Congress has granted the President expansive power over tariffs and foreign trade. Ante, at 325–329 (Thomas, J., dissenting). Page Proof Pending Publication LEARNING RESOURCES, INC. v. TRUMP And this Court has uniformly rejected challenges to tariffs imposed by Presidents under those statutory authorities.
E. g., Federal Energy Administration v. Algonquin SNG, Inc., 426 U. S. 548, 558–560 (1976); J. W. Hampton, Jr., & Co. v. United States, 276 U. S. 394, 409 (1928); Marshall Field, 143 U. S., at 690–694; Cargo of Brig Aurora v. United States, 7 Cranch 382, 386–388 (1813).
As Professors Bradley and Goldsmith well summarized, there is a “settled practice of about a century of the executive branch exercising emergency powers in many important contexts pursuant to the broadly worded IEEPA and its predecessor, the Trading with the Enemy Act. And there is an even longer practice, dating to the Founding, of presidents exercising trade-related sanctions authority pursuant to broadly worded statutes. Notably, the Court has already suggested in both of these contexts that one should expect Congress to, in effect, paint with a broad brush.” 172 U. Pa. L. Rev., at 1796–1797.
As with tariffs on foreign imports historically, the IEEPA tariffs on foreign imports at issue in this case implicate foreign affairs. According to the Government, the President has leveraged the IEEPA tariffs into trade deals with major trading partners including China, the United Kingdom, and Japan, among other countries. The Government says that the tariffs have helped make certain foreign markets more accessible to American businesses and have contributed to trade deals with foreign nations worth trillions of dollars. Moreover, consistent with history and the traditional uses of tariffs, the President “is exercising his IEEPA authority in connection with highly sensitive negotiations he is conducting to end the confict between the Russian Federation and Ukraine.” Decl. of M. Rubio in No. 25–1812 (CA Fed., Aug. 29, 2025), p. 3. To that end, on August 6, 2025, the President imposed tariffs on India for “directly or indirectly importing Russian Federation oil.” Exec. Order No. 14329, Page Proof Pending Publication 90 Fed. Reg. 38701 (2025). And on February 6, 2026, the President reduced the tariffs on India because, according to the Government, India had “committed to stop directly or indirectly importing Russian Federation oil.” Exec. Order No. 14384, 91 Fed. Reg. 6501 (2026).
To be sure, most foreign affairs and national security ac- tions—whether war, international agreements, trade deals, or tariffs—lead to signifcant domestic ramifcations within the United States. And this case is no exception. Nonetheless, in the foreign affairs feld, courts interpret statutes as written, with appropriate respect to Congress and the President and without a major questions doctrine weight on the scale against the President. See Youngstown, 343 U. S., at 636, n. 2 (Jackson, J., concurring).
Lest there be any remaining doubt that the major questions doctrine does not apply to tariffs on foreign imports, recall again this Court's decision in Algonquin. That case involved signifcant tariffs imposed by President Ford on oil imports. The relevant statute granted the President the authority to “adjust the imports.” 19 U. S. C. § 1862(b) (1970 ed.). The Court upheld the tariffs by interpreting the statute as written. Neither the major questions doctrine—nor anything resembling that doctrine—played a role in that case.
In short, “Presidential actions pursuant to broad congressional authorizations related to foreign affairs often have long historical pedigrees that can in various ways inform congressional intent to approve the actions in question. To the extent that this is so in particular instances, the major questions doctrine's clear authorization requirement does not apply.” Bradley & Goldsmith, 172 U. Pa. L. Rev., at 1794 (emphasis added).
So it is here: Presidents “have long been granted substantial discretion over tariffs.” Id., at 1759, n. 90. This Court has never before applied the major questions doctrine to a Page Proof Pending Publication Page Proof Pending Publication LEARNING RESOURCES, INC. v. TRUMP statute authorizing the President to take action with respect to foreign affairs in general or tariffs in particular. And it should not do so today.
The Chief Justice's opinion's reliance on the major questions doctrine in this foreign affairs case is a frst—a novel and unprecedented use of the major questions doctrine to invalidate Presidential action taken pursuant to congressional authorization in the foreign affairs area. I frmly disagree with that use of the major questions doctrine here. In the foreign affairs context, including tariffs, the longstanding rule is simple: Interpret the statute as written, not with a thumb on the scale against the President.23 23In his thoughtful concurrence, Justice Gorsuch agrees that the major questions doctrine often does not apply to foreign affairs statutes, but in his view it does not apply only when the President also has inherent or independent Article II power. Ante, at 284–285. The Chief Justice's opinion for three Justices also gestures at that position. See ante, at 247–248. I see some analytical and practical problems with that approach. First, as Justice Gorsuch elsewhere notes, the major questions doctrine serves in part to reinforce nondelegation principles. Yet as I have explained, the Court's nondelegation cases from the Founding to the present—including numerous cases involving tariffs—have “recognized internal and external affairs as being in separate categories, and held that the strict limitation upon congressional delegations of power to the President over internal affairs does not apply with respect to delegations of power in external affairs.” Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U. S. 579, 636, n. 2 (1952) (Jackson, J., concurring); see also United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp., 299 U. S. 304, 319–322 (1936); Panama Re fning Co. v. Ryan, 293 U. S. 388, 422 (1935). In those cases, the Court has not further subdivided the foreign affairs power in the manner that Justice Gorsuch now suggests.
Second, terms such as “inherent” or “independent” in this context continue to be “used, often interchangeably and without fxed or ascertainable meanings.” Youngstown, 343 U. S., at 647 (Jackson, J., concurring); see also id., at 637. So it would be both novel and jurisprudentially chaotic to try to now create a new approach tying the applicability of the major questions canon in the foreign affairs context to such uncertain triggers.
Related precedent further demonstrates that the major questions doctrine has not traditionally applied in the national security or foreign policy contexts. Consider two prominent examples.
First, in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U. S. 507, this Court considered the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force, which Congress passed and President George W. Bush signed on September 18, 2001, in the wake of the al Qaeda attacks on the United States. The law broadly empowered the President to use “all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks” that occurred on September 11, 2001. Authorization for Use of Military Force, 115 Stat. 224 (Sept. 18, 2001). In Hamdi, the Government militarily detained in the United States an American citizen who had taken up arms with the Taliban. 542 U. S., at 510–511. The plaintiff Hamdi argued, among other things, that the AUMF generally authorized the use of force but did not specifcally authorize military detention, at least detention of American- citizen enemy combatants in the United States. See id., at 515–517. He contended that his military detention was therefore illegal.
In the principal opinion by Justice O'Connor, the Court rejected Hamdi's statutory argument, explaining that it was “of no moment that the AUMF does not use specifc language of detention.” Id., at 519. Rather, because “detention to prevent a combatant's return to the battlefeld is a fundamental incident of waging war, in permitting the use of `necessary and appropriate force,' Congress has clearly and unmistakably authorized detention in the narrow circumstances considered here.” Ibid. Consider the similarities between Hamdi and this case.
Both involve major questions of foreign affairs. Hamdi inPage Proof Pending Publication LEARNING RESOURCES, INC. v. TRUMP volved U. S. military detention of an American citizen in America, pursuant to a generally worded authorization for use of military force. This case involves tariffs on foreign goods imported into America pursuant to a generally worded authorization to regulate importation. Detention is a traditional incident of the President's delegated power to wage war. See id., at 518. Tariffs are a traditional incident of the President's delegated power to regulate imports and foreign commerce. In Hamdi, the Court said that as a matter of history, practice, and precedent, the AUMF's general authorization for the use of military force clearly encompassed detention of enemy combatants. Id., at 518–522. Here, as a matter of history, practice, and precedent, IEEPA's general authorization for regulation of importation likewise clearly encompasses tariffs on foreign imports.
Second, in 1981 in Dames & Moore, 453 U. S. 654, the Court did not apply the major questions doctrine, even though the Court had recently applied that principle in a signifcant domestic policy case. Cf. Industrial Union Dept., AFL–CIO v. American Petroleum Institute, 448 U. S. 607 (1980) (plurality opinion).
The Dames & Moore case arose in the wake of the Iran hostage crisis where Iran held more than 50 American hostages at the U. S. Embassy in Iran for more than 14 months. As one part of the ultimate settlement of the hostage crisis with Iran, President Reagan suspended claims by U. S. nationals against Iran that were pending in American courts. Dames & Moore, 453 U. S., at 666. The President did so under IEEPA and the Hostage Act. Id., at 675.
There can be little doubt that the question of suspending American citizens' claims against Iran was one of major economic and political signifcance. And the Court further recognized that the case touched “fundamentally upon the manner in which our Republic is to be governed.” Id., at 659. Yet the Court did not require “clear congressional authorizaPage Proof Pending Publication tion” for the President's exercise of that authority to suspend the Americans' claims against Iran.
On the contrary, the Court openly acknowledged that the relevant statutes—IEEPA and the Hostage Act—did not provide clear or “specifc authorization” for the President to suspend those claims. Id., at 677. The Court nonetheless concluded that the “general tenor of Congress' legislation in this area”—combined with Congress's longstanding acquiescence to the President's practice of settling claims—supported the President's suspension of those claims. Id., at 678. Congress's “general tenor” and acquiescence are of course far less than the “clear congressional authorization” that The Chief Justice's opinion today newly demands for the President's tariffs.
Again, consider the similarities between Dames & Moore and this case. Dames & Moore involved complicated questions of foreign policy and national security. The statutes in Dames & Moore were generally worded and did not specifcally authorize suspension of claims. But Presidents had historically exercised a similar power. See id., at 677–682. Here, we likewise have a generally worded statutory authorization to “regulate . . . importation.” And Presidents have historically imposed tariffs.
If IEEPA permitted the President to lawfully suspend claims in Dames & Moore—despite the Court's transparent acknowledgment that the actual statutory text did not clearly authorize the President's actions—then surely IEEPA's authorization to “regulate . . . importation” easily justifes these tariffs.
The Chief Justice's opinion would chart a new course for the major questions doctrine, extending it for the frst time deep into the foreign affairs sphere. If the Court had applied the major questions doctrine in Hamdi and Dames & Moore, those two landmark cases almost certainly would have been decided differently. So today's opinion marks a Page Proof Pending Publication LEARNING RESOURCES, INC. v. TRUMP signifcant change. Will the Court apply the major questions doctrine in the foreign affairs context again in the future? Or is this a ticket good for one day and one train only? Time will tell. But in the meantime, the decision could engender signifcant uncertainty over the Executive's exercise of statutory authority in the foreign affairs realm. As the Hamdi and Dames & Moore examples demonstrate, applying the major questions doctrine in the foreign policy and national security contexts in the past would have seriously hindered the President's ability to exercise power granted by Congress to achieve important foreign policy and national security objectives for America. And if applied in the foreign affairs context in the future, it could impair Presidents' vital statutory authorities with respect to foreign policy and national security.24 * * * Having said all of that on foreign affairs, I reiterate that the major questions doctrine—even if it applies in this foreign affairs context—does not defeat major executive actions that are clearly authorized by Congress. See Bradley & Goldsmith, 172 U. Pa. L. Rev., at 1790–1791. And as ex24What is the status going forward of the major questions doctrine in foreign affairs cases? Only three Justices (at most) today suggest that the major questions doctrine should apply in the foreign affairs context— The Chief Justice, Justice Gorsuch, and Justice Barrett. I doubt that the major questions doctrine analysis in The Chief Justice's opinion for those three Justices is controlling for future cases as a matter of precedent under the Marks rule. See Marks v. United States, 430 U. S. 188, 193 (1977). That is because three Justices (Justice Sotomayor, Justice Kagan, and Justice Jackson) do not recognize the major questions doctrine at all. Ante, at 304–305 (Kagan, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). And this dissent would not apply it in the foreign affairs context. So it appears that six Justices would not apply it in the foreign affairs context. In my view, the question of whether or how the major questions doctrine applies in foreign affairs cases remains at least an open question.
Page Proof Pending Publication plained in Part III–A above, in IEEPA Congress clearly authorized the President to impose tariffs to “regulate . . . importation” in national emergencies. In other words, even if the major questions doctrine applies in the foreign affairs context exactly as it does in domestic affairs, the President should still prevail in this case.
IV
Finally, no Member of the Court today relies on the non- delegation doctrine. But the plaintiffs briefy raise such an argument, and I will therefore briefy address it. The argument is unavailing for many of the reasons already noted in the major questions analysis above. This Court has repeatedly rejected constitutional challenges to congressional delegations to the President in the foreign affairs area, including delegations of tariff authority.
For matters of foreign affairs and national security, the Court has traditionally recognized that Congress “must of necessity paint with a brush broader than that it customarily wields in domestic areas.” Zemel v. Rusk, 381 U. S. 1, 17 (1965). And to reiterate, numerous statutes “ `authorizing action by the President in respect of subjects affecting foreign relations' ” “ `either leave the exercise of the power to his unrestricted judgment, or provide a standard far more general than that which has always been considered requisite with regard to domestic affairs.' ” Department of Transportation v. Association of American Railroads, 575 U. S. 43, 80, n. 5 (2015) (Thomas, J., concurring in judgment) (quoting United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp., 299 U. S. 304, 324 (1936)). Therefore, as Justice Thomas has explained, the Court's precedents establish that “the Constitution grants the President a greater measure of discretion in the realm of foreign relations.” Association of American Railroads, 575 U. S., at 80, n. 5; see Curtiss-Wright Export Corp., 299 U. S., at 319–322; Panama Refning Co. v. Ryan, 293 U. S. 388, 422 (1935).
Page Proof Pending Publication LEARNING RESOURCES, INC. v. TRUMP Justice Robert Jackson likewise noted the “ `unwisdom of requiring Congress in this feld of governmental power to lay down narrowly defnite standards by which the President is to be governed.' ” Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Saw yer, 343 U. S. 579, 636, n. 2 (1952) (concurring opinion) (quoting Curtiss-Wright, 299 U. S., at 321–322). As such, the “strict limitation upon congressional delegations of power to the President over internal affairs does not apply with respect to delegations of power in external affairs.” Youngs town, 343 U. S., at 636, n. 2 (concurring opinion).
Because statutes that “involv[e] the external relations of the United States” do not trigger the same kind of delegation concerns as purely domestic ones, Association of American Railroads, 575 U. S., at 80 (opinion of Thomas, J.), the Court has regularly upheld delegations of power to the President in the national security and foreign policy realms. See, e. g., Curtiss-Wright, 299 U. S., at 319–322; Loving v. United States, 517 U. S. 748, 771–774 (1996). Indeed, if a strict non- delegation doctrine applied in those areas, numerous stat- utes—including many authorizations for use of military force in the Nation's history—would have been unconstitutional delegations of authority to the President. See Authorization for Use of Military Force, 115 Stat. 224 (Sept. 18, 2001) (“[T]he President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001”). As to tariffs in particular: Broad delegations of tariff authority to the President have been in the heartland of permissible delegations upheld by this Court. Congress may, without running afoul of the Constitution, “invest the President with large discretion in matters arising out of the execution of statutes relating to trade and commerce with other nations.” Marshall Field & Co. v. Clark, 143 U. S. 649, 691 (1892). Congressional delegations of tariffs and other foreign trade authorities to the President date back to near the Page Proof Pending Publication Page Proof Pending Publication Founding. And this Court has uniformly rejected nondelegation challenges to statutes delegating that authority to the President. E. g., Federal Energy Administration v. Algon quin SNG, Inc., 426 U. S. 548, 558–560 (1976); J. W. Hampton, Jr., & Co. v. United States, 276 U. S. 394, 409 (1928); Marshall Field, 143 U. S., at 690–694; Cargo of Brig Aurora v. United States, 7 Cranch 382, 386–388 (1813).
This Court's decision in Algonquin is again instructive.
There, the Court held that Section 232 did not constitute an unconstitutional delegation. 426 U. S., at 558–560. The Court found it suffcient that the President could act “only” to the extent “he deems necessary to adjust the imports” of an article such that it “will not threaten to impair the national security.” Id., at 559 (quotation marks omitted).
To be clear, I am not suggesting that there is no nondelegation doctrine in the foreign affairs realm. But the Court has consistently recognized that the doctrine affords more fexibility to Congress and the President in that area to deal with the complex foreign relations issues and national security threats facing America. See Association of American Railroads, 575 U. S., at 80, n. 5 (opinion of Thomas, J.); Youngstown, 343 U. S., at 636, n. 2 (Jackson, J., concurring); Curtiss-Wright, 299 U. S., at 319–322; Panama Refning, 293 U. S., at 422.
In all events, for purposes of this Court's nondelegation precedents, IEEPA suffciently constrains the President's authority to declare an emergency and impose tariffs. See J. W. Hampton, 276 U. S., at 409; FCC v. Consumers' Re search, 606 U. S. 656, 673–675, 681–691 (2025). The President may exercise the authorities in IEEPA “only” “to deal with an unusual and extraordinary threat” that “has its source in whole or substantial part outside the United States” and “with respect to which a national emergency has been declared.” 50 U. S. C. § 1701. Congress placed numerous limits on IEEPA, including a default 1-year time limit, an enumerated list of exceptions, and comprehensive LEARNING RESOURCES, INC. v. TRUMP congressional reporting requirements.
See §§ 1622(d), 1702(b), 1703.
It is also useful to underscore the extraordinary nature of the plaintiffs' nondelegation argument here. The plaintiffs' submission would mean that these tariffs would be unlawful even if IEEPA explicitly authorized tariffs. Unlike their statutory and major questions doctrine arguments, their nondelegation argument is not based on a lack of an explicit reference to “tariffs” or “duties” or the like. Their nondelegation argument instead goes much further and would require very specifc congressional directions to the President on when and under what circumstances he could impose tariffs and how high those tariffs could be. The plaintiffs' theory would have dramatic consequences and likely wipe out many of the existing tariff statutes that have long been upheld by this Court, as well as TWEA. And if the tariff authority here is unlawful, so too are most if not all IEEPA authorities such as asset freezes, embargoes, and quotas. And it would not stop there. The plaintiffs' nondelegation theory would threaten various other national security and foreign affairs statutes that similarly grant substantial discretion to the President. The Court today thankfully does not go down that road.25
V
The overarching theme of the Court's opinion is that tariffs are not a clear means to “regulate . . . importation” and 25Some last points for completeness: The plaintiffs also raise two other arguments that the Court today does not address or rely on. First, they argue that Section 122, a non-emergency tariff statute that addresses trade defcits, implicitly displaces IEEPA's tariff authority. Second, they argue that the tariffs here do not deal with an “unusual and extraordinary threat” as to which a national emergency has been declared. In my view, those arguments are insubstantial, as Judge Taranto persuasively explained in the Federal Circuit. See 149 F. 4th 1312, 1359–1361, 1371–1375 (2025) (dissenting opinion). Because the Court today does not address or rely on them, I will not discuss them further here. Finally, I agree with footnote 1 of the Court's opinion regarding jurisdiction. Ante, at 240, n. 1. Page Proof Pending Publication that Congress was therefore required to use the word “tariff,” “duty,” or the like in IEEPA in 1977 if it wanted to authorize tariffs on foreign imports. But that conclusion contravenes text, history, and precedent. To summarize: Algonquin in 1976 unanimously held the opposite. The Nixon and Ford tariffs were based on statutory provisions that did not use the word “tariff” or “duty.” There is a long tradition of Presidents imposing tariffs as a means of regulating importation and commerce. The predecessor Trading with the Enemy Act has long been understood to authorize tariffs during wartime as a means to “regulate . . . importation,” even though it does not use the word “tariff ” or “duty.” The history of the Polk, Lincoln, and McKinley tariffs shows that tariffs are a means of regulating importation. Marshall, Story, and Madison stated that tariffs are a means of regulating foreign commerce. The dictionary defnitions and ordinary usage establish that tariffs are a means of regulating importation.
All of that and much more, in my view, overwhelmingly establish that IEEPA clearly authorizes the President to impose tariffs.
That said, with respect to tariffs in particular, the Court's decision might not prevent Presidents from imposing most if not all of these same sorts of tariffs under other statutory authorities. For example, Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 permits the President to impose a “temporary import surcharge” to “deal with large and serious United States balance-of-payments defcits.” 19 U. S. C. § 2132(a). Section 201 of the Trade Act of 1974 provides that, if the International Trade Commission determines an article is being imported in such quantities that it is “a substantial cause of serious injury, or the threat thereof, to the domestic industry producing an article like or directly competitive with the imported article,” the President may take “appropriate and feasible action,” including imposing a “duty.” §§ 2251(a), 2253(a)(3)(A). Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 authorPage Proof Pending Publication LEARNING RESOURCES, INC. v. TRUMP izes the President through a subordinate offcer to “impose duties” if he determines that “an act, policy, or practice of a foreign country” is “unjustifable and burdens or restricts United States commerce.” §§ 2411(a)–(c). Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 permits the President to impose tariffs when he fnds that “any foreign country places any burden or disadvantage upon the commerce of the United States.”
§ 1338(d). And Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 authorizes the President to, after receiving a report from the Secretary of Commerce, “adjust the imports of [an] article and its derivatives so that such imports will not threaten to impair the national security.” § 1862(c)(1)(A). So the Court's decision is not likely to greatly restrict Presidential tariff authority going forward. But the Court's decision is likely to generate other serious practical consequences in the near term. One issue will be refunds. Refunds of billions of dollars would have signifcant consequences for the U. S. Treasury. The Court says nothing today about whether, and if so how, the Government should go about returning the billions of dollars that it has collected from importers. But that process is likely to be a “mess,” as was acknowledged at oral argument. Tr. of Oral Arg.
153–155. A second issue is the decision's effect on the current trade deals. Because IEEPA tariffs have helped facilitate trade deals worth trillions of dollars—including with foreign nations from China to the United Kingdom to Japan, the Court's decision could generate uncertainty regarding various trade agreements. That process, too, could be diffcult.
* * * The tariffs at issue here may or may not be wise policy.
But as a matter of text, history, and precedent, they are clearly lawful. I respectfully dissent.
Page Proof Pending Publication Page Proof Pending Publication Reporter’s Note The attached opinion has been revised to refect the usual publication and citation style of the United States Reports. The revised pagination makes available the offcial United States Reports citation in advance of publication. The syllabus has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader and constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court. A list of counsel who argued or fled briefs in this case, and who were members of the bar of this Court at the time this case was argued, has been inserted following the syllabus. Other revisions may include adjustments to formatting, captions, citation form, and any errant punctuation. The following additional edits were made: p. 279, n. 2, line 2: “lies” is changed to “lie” p. 288, line 7: “(plurality opinion)” is inserted after “510” p. 288, line 11: “(opinion of O'Connor, J.)” is deleted p. 284, line 3 from bottom: “2004” is changed to “2024”