Tariffs - A President Reined In

February 23, 2026

The recent tariff decision from the Supreme Court offers a textbook example of how our constitutional system is supposed to function.

At issue was whether the President could rely on a national emergency statute to impose sweeping trade measures that Congress never clearly authorized.

The Court’s answer was straightforward: executive power must remain within the bounds Congress has set.

This is not the judiciary making economic policy.

It is the judiciary enforcing the separation of powers.

Under the Constitution, Congress writes the laws that grant authority. Presidents may act only within those grants. And when a president stretches a statute beyond what Congress intended, it becomes the courts’ responsibility to step in and restore the limits.

That checking function is not a flaw in our system — it is one of its core protections.

For more than two centuries, courts have served as guardrails against unilateral executive action, ensuring that vague language does not become a blank check for presidential power.

The tariff ruling reaffirms a foundational principle of constitutional government:

Presidential power comes from law — not discretion.

And when courts enforce that boundary, they are not obstructing democracy.

They are preserving it.