Utah lawmakers had split reactions to the long-awaited decision by the Supreme Court ruling that President Donald Trump’s sweeping global tariffs were unconstitutional, dealing a major blow to one of the president’s top economic policies.
Sen. John Curtis reacted to the decision as a win for upholding the checks and balances system enshrined in the Constitution. Article I mandates that Congress has authority over tariff policy, something that has long been tested, and even challenged, by the Trump administration in recent months.
“Several questions remain unanswered, including what happens to the revenue already collected and how the Administration may use alternative authorities to impose tariffs,” Curtis said in a statement on Friday. “Looking ahead, it is critical that we provide the clarity and predictability businesses need.”
Curtis has previously expressed skepticism of Trump’s tariff policies, noting that while he is supportive of targeted punitive measures against certain countries, there can be unintended consequences to the increased taxes. Those include higher prices for small businesses and consumers.
However, some Republicans remained optimistic Trump could still wield his authority to impose tariffs through other means.
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, highlighted the arguments from dissenting justices that stated Trump merely “checked the wrong statutory box by relying on (International Emergency Economic Powers Act) rather than another statute to impose these tariffs.”
Lee later wrote that while “I don’t love tariffs” and he is “leery of Congress ceding authority to the executive branch,” he disagrees with the latest Supreme Court ruling.
“IEEPA gives the President power to ‘regulate … importation,’ and that has always encompassed the power to impose tariffs," Lee said in a post on X.
That was the argument made by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, suggesting that although IEEPA did not give Trump unilateral authority to impose tariffs without congressional approval, there may be other means to do so.
Lee, like Curtis, expressed uncertainty about what would be done with all the money that has already been collected from the tariffs.
“If the Supreme Court was going to invalidate these tariffs, the least it could do would have been to provide some degree of certainty as to the remedy for tariffs already collected,” Lee said in another post. “Regrettably, the Court punted on that issue—as Congress does on so many, many occasions."
Trump has already hinted at “backup plans,” according to CNN, who reported on the president’s initial reactions to the Supreme Court ruling while he was participating in a closed-door breakfast with U.S. governors.
Trump later said on Friday afternoon that he would be issuing a 10% global tariff through an executive order, and has so far said he won’t seek congressional approval for further action.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., indicated on Friday that Congress and the administration would review the ruling and “determine the best path forward in the coming weeks.”
The 6-3 ruling on Friday has been met with praise by top Democrats in Congress as well as some Republican lawmakers who have repeatedly pushed back on the economic policy.
Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., said he felt “vindicated” by the decision, especially after being chastised by the president last week for voting to overturn a national emergency order used to justify tariffs on Canada.
“The Constitution’s checks and balances still works. Article 1 gives tariff authority to Congress. This was a commonsense and straightforward ruling by the Supreme Court,” Bacon said. “I’ve been saying this for the last 12 months. In the future, Congress should defend its authorities and not just rely on the Supreme Court. Besides the constitutional concerns I had on the administration’s broad-based tariffs, I also do not think tariffs are smart economic policy. Broad-based tariffs are bad economics.”
Meanwhile, some Republicans decried the decision as thwarting the United States’ economic strength.
“These tariffs protected jobs, revived manufacturing, and forced cheaters like China to pay up,” Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, said in a statement. “Now globalists win.”