U.S. Supreme Court May Rule U.S. Tariffs On Some Canadian Goods Illegal

Canadian businesses have paid some portion of what the White House says is about US$1 trillion in tariffs imposed by the current administration by executive orders. Whether some of those orders are within the authority granted to the President by Congress under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) is under consideration by the U.S. Supreme Court after it heard oral argument last year in the case Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump (Tariffs) (consolidated with Trump v. V.O.S. Selections).

A key question in the case is whether a tariff is a tax or a way to regulate foreign imports. The question of whether the imposition of a charge, like a tariff, constitutes a tax has repeatedly arisen in American history since its inception. In the decade or so leading up to the formation of the United States, the British Parliament passed laws imposing what the American colonists said were not legitimate tariffs but impermissible taxes on products like lead,