So What Happens Now?
It was a group of small businesses that stood up to President Trump’s tariffs and just won a big victory in an appellate court. But a final resolution could take a while.
Good Morning!
Here are today’s highlights:
A loss at the Supreme Court would likely force the U.S. Treasury to refund billions in collected tariffs.
While President Trump says the ruling, if upheld, will destroy America, the Wall Street Journal editorial board is cheering the decision.
Gene Marks says the soft job market represents a big opportunity for small businesses.
Should business owners promise their employees not to reduce headcount because of AI?
THE TRADE WARS
Despite Friday’s appellate decision, the tariff uncertainty is likely to continue for the foreseeable future: “Across three different courts, 15 judges have weighed Trump’s tariff maneuvers—and 11 of them, appointed by presidents of both parties, have found he acted without legal support. The most consequential of those decisions came late Friday from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which rejected the tariffs and gave the president a mid-October deadline to appeal to the Supreme Court before the ruling takes effect. The White House always expected the dispute to be settled at the high court, and it is betting that the court’s conservative majority, one that stands to the right of many lower courts that have ruled against the administration this year, will affirm Trump’s sweeping assertion of his own authority. There are reasons its optimism makes sense.”
“Often over the dissent of its three liberal members, the court has granted Trump’s emergency requests to fire federal officials, deport some classes of immigrants with minimal due process, withhold congressionally appropriated research and education funding, and expel transgender service members from the armed forces, among other matters. The court’s orders in those cases may be provisional, but they let the administration have its way for months or perhaps years while litigation proceeds.”
“The tariff case, however, may not be so easy to predict. Not only does Trump’s policy break with longstanding Republican Party orthodoxy in favor of free trade, his choice to implement it unilaterally rather than through legislation has created legal vulnerabilities that plaintiffs have been quick to exploit.”
“The parties challenging the tariffs go beyond the progressive groups and Democratic-led states involved in most suits against the administration. Here, small businesses, trade associations and right-leaning advocacy groups have all filed briefs complaining that the tariffs are illegal, and their arguments rely on legal doctrines the Supreme Court previously has cited to strike down excesses it found in Biden administration policies.”
“A final decision still could be many months away. Because the administration still can collect tariffs for now, the White House faces no real urgency to move faster than the mid-October deadline to file an appeal with the Supreme Court. It could be December or January before the court agrees to take up the case, which would likely put oral arguments in the winter or early spring. A decision likely would be weeks or months after that.” READ MORE
