By Trevor Hunnicutt and Jarrett Renshaw
WASHINGTON, Feb 20 (Reuters) – For more than a year, Donald Trump has moved through Washington like a monarch, in a capital increasingly shaped by his power, threats and whims.
On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court abruptly altered that trajectory. In striking down his administration’s signature economic policy, the justices delivered a rare and public rebuke that signaled the dominant Republican president had finally reached the limits of his authority.
Trump’s reaction was immediate and visceral.
Upon learning of the ruling, Trump told governors gathered at the White House that he was “seething” and had to do something about the courts, said Delaware Governor Matt Meyer, a Democrat who was in the room.
Later, in front of reporters, Trump tore into the justices who ruled against him – including two of his own nominees – calling them weak, a disgrace and an “embarrassment to their families.” He scoffed at what he cast as the majority’s tortured logic.
“For someone who never admits losing,” said Chris Borick, a pollster and political science professor at Pennsylvania’s Muhlenberg College, “this is a pretty significant loss.”
TRUMP’S FAVORITE WORD
Few policies have defined Trump’s second term in office more than his aggressive use of tariffs. To Trump, a tariff is not just a tax imposed on goods when they cross the U.S. border, but “my favorite word” and “the most beautiful word in the dictionary,” as he has repeatedly told supporters.
He has wielded the threat of tariffs as a cudgel to extract concessions on soybean purchases, win billions in foreign investment pledges, stem the flow of narcotics, wade into international conflicts, adjust prescription drug prices and boost favored U.S. industries.
The Republican-controlled Congress, despite its constitutional authority over taxation, mostly stood aside.
The conservative Supreme Court often enhanced Trump’s power, granting him immunity for his actions in office and issuing emergency rulings that favored his policies.
But the court’s 6-3 decision on Friday, authored by conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, punctured Trump’s long-held assertion that he could impose sweeping tariffs in the name of U.S. economic security. The ruling injected fresh uncertainty into a political landscape already shaped by volatile markets, uneasy foreign partners and looming midterm elections that could further curtail Trump’s power.
“It is a blow to his expansive vision of emergency powers, which was the pillar for his entire economic agenda and more,” said Julian E. Zelizer, presidential historian at Princeton University.
WOUNDED PRESIDENT LASHES OUT
Met with the biggest setback of his current term in office, an angry Trump responded characteristically: lashing out at those who dared to stand in his way, while still claiming victory.
Under theatrically dimmed lights in the White House press briefing room, Trump berated judges he had appointed. He suggested that their ruling had clarified his broad powers to use tariffs or cut off trade with other countries entirely. And he quoted a dissenting Supreme Court opinion that said the decision might not substantially constrain a president’s ability to order tariffs in the future.
“I can charge much more than I was charging,” Trump concluded.
“It’s a little more complicated,” he said. “The process takes a little more time, but the end result is going to get us more money, and I think it’s going to be great.”
Asked if he would ask Congress to give him the powers the Supreme Court said he did not have, Trump was defiant.
“No, I don’t need to, it’s already been approved,” he said. “I mean, I would ask Congress and probably get it.”
No president has used the law that was in dispute, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, as expansively as Trump. And despite his bravado at Friday’s press briefing, the alternative laws he could tap to impose tariffs would be slower to implement, require more exhaustive justification and come with time limits.
“The presidency is definitely weaker” as a result of the ruling, said Saikrishna Prakash, a constitutional scholar at the University of Virginia School of Law. “He’s weaker.”
(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Jarrett Renshaw; Additional reporting by Andrea Shalal and Bo Erickson; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Diane Craft)
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