On the Tuesday, February 24, 2026, episode of The Excerpt podcast:Last week, the Supreme Court delivered a major ruling on presidential power — striking down a centerpiece of PresidentDonald Trump's economic agenda. What happens next? USA TODAY White House Correspondent Bart Jansen joins The Excerpt to break it all down.
Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it.This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
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Dana Taylor:
Last week, the Supreme Court delivered a major ruling on presidential power, striking down a centerpiece of President Donald Trump's economic agenda. How will this ruling impact American consumers and the economy? And how will it shape Trump's trade policy going forward? Hello and welcome to USA TODAY's The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Tuesday, February 24th, 2026. Here to help me break down the issues from a legal, political, and economic perspective, I'm now joined by USA TODAY White House Correspondent Bart Jansen. Bart, thanks so much for joining me.
Bart Jansen:
Thanks for having me.
Dana Taylor:
Let's start with the basics, Bart. What exactly did the Supreme Court say?
Bart Jansen:
By a six, three majority, the justices basically said that Trump doesn't have the authority to impose emergency tariffs under a 1977 law that aimed to allow some trade restrictions, but tariffs are considered a tax, and Congress in the Constitution was given the power to tax. So the lack of explicit authority in the statute to impose tariffs meant the Supreme Court blocked Trump under this statute.
Dana Taylor:
Trump wasn't particularly happy about the ruling. What did he say?
Bart Jansen:
He's called it dumb, ridiculous. He said he was ashamed of the justices who voted against him. He said it was an embarrassment to their families. He's very upset about this decision because it was a centerpiece of his economic policy and also a key factor in his foreign policy because he's used tariffs as a cudgel to force manufacturers to relocate jobs back in the United States on foreign countries to allow more trade into those countries and also treat us more fairly in trade practices and also to raise hundreds of billions of dollars for the US government. So this was a big blow for his administration, but as he says, he contends he has other avenues to impose different kinds of tariffs to make up the shortfall.
Dana Taylor:
And the President turned around and gave a press conference a few hours later saying he had another way to enact his trade policy. Let's give a listen.
Donald Trump:
Effective immediately, all national security tariffs under Section 232 and existing section 301 tariffs, they're existing, they're there, remain in place, fully in place and in full force and effect. I will sign an order to impose a 10% global tariff under Section 122, over and above our normal tariffs already being charged.
Dana Taylor:
Burt, is this new tactic likely to withstand judicial scrutiny?
Bart Jansen:
Well, it's not even so much a new tactic because he has already used some of these paths in the past. There are basically several statutes that allow Trump to impose tariffs, allow any president to impose tariffs. They go by a variety of different numbers based on their sections in federal law, 122, 232, 301. You don't need to get bogged down in the numbers, but for a second I will. 232 was a section of code that allows for tariffs under reasons of national security. That's the way that he imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum and car parts already. And those tariffs continue despite the Supreme Court striking down his use of emergency tariffs. So it's a different section of federal law. Those tariffs continue on aluminum and steel. That kind of tariff though has to be imposed after a Commerce Department investigation, and that's what he's been arguing is that the emergency tariffs allowed him to impose tariffs on a whim.
He could set any number he wanted and he could start it on any day he wanted. So he liked that flexibility and it gave him just a lot more agility to deal with foreign countries or foreign manufacturers to both use it as a foreign policy tool, but also to raise money for the United States. The tariffs that he imposed on Friday and then raised again on Saturday fall under a different statute, a section 1 22 for those who want to play trivia that deal with trade imbalances or currency depreciation. The key to this one is he could impose the tariffs almost immediately. He imposed initially at 10% and then on Saturday raised at to 15%. That's the cap under this kind of tariff.
The problem with this one is that it only lasts for 150 days unless Congress votes. To extend it's possible that Congress could vote to extend tariffs, but many Republicans are leery of tariffs because of their link to taxation and raising costs on consumers. So it's not an automatic that Congress would extend tariffs. So that one was a quick way for him to restore at least part of the tariff value that he lost when the Supreme Court struck down emergency tariffs.
Another section, just to let your listeners know, is 301 for unjustified or discriminatory trade practices. But here again, you need an investigation by the U.S trade representative, so that slows things down a little bit and would take longer. That's again why Trump liked the emergency tariffs, because he could impose them at will and set any number he wanted.
Dana Taylor:
And does this ruling potentially signal that the high court is not going to side with Trump or the Trump administration on other cases this year, ceding to what some have called presidential overreach? What other cases involving Trump's use of power are we waiting to hear about?
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Bart Jansen:
Well, the tariffs case was arguably the biggest case that he faced this term, and so it is a big disappointment for him. Another major case looming with arguments on April 1st, deals with birthright citizenship, whether a person is basically automatically a U.S citizen when they are born in the United States. This is a constitutional amendment. It has long been US policy, but Trump contends that it applied only to the children of former slaves. It was the 14th amendment was adopted after the Civil War. Trump wants to limit it so that it doesn't apply to people who are in the United States temporarily, such as under visas or who have arrived without legal authorization, undocumented immigrants. That'll be the next big case on the horizon. Arguments April 1st with the decision before the end of June.
Dana Taylor:
How have the impacted countries responded to his new tariff announcement?
Bart Jansen:
Well, mostly with caution because we need to puzzle out how much he would do in different ways. But the European Union has already said that it is reviewing its trade deal negotiated with Trump under the threat of the emergency tariffs and says that it's not going to vote immediately. They want to see more about how threatened tariffs will continue to shake out. Canada considered the Supreme Court decision a vindication of its argument that it shouldn't be held to those emergency tariffs. They've been in trade negotiations ever since Trump imposed them. Those talks will continue, and again, they are waiting to see what other tariffs he might impose.
Dana Taylor:
Interestingly, a new report came out the day beforeSCOTUS's decision about trade imbalances in the wake of Trump's tariffs. What did that report say, Bart?
Bart Jansen:
Well, it said the trade imbalance actually grew during 2025. One of Trump's arguments in imposing these higher than ever before tariffs were to draw more manufacturing back into the United States and basically have more produced here, more American jobs, in addition to raising money for the country so that we aren't sending so much money overseas. We're spending it here at home on local products, but the amount of goods that we were buying from overseas was $1.24 trillion more than the products that we sent to other countries during 2025 according to the new report from the Commerce Department. So that is interesting that despite all of the higher tariffs that Trump imposed last year, that the trade deficit widened about 2% because we continue to buy more products from overseas than we send to those foreign countries.
Dana Taylor:
Tariffs have been tied to higher prices on everyday goods like furniture, dishes, household items, and are estimated to have collected up to $200 billion so far. How has Trump proposed to distribute that money and what do Democrats say?
Bart Jansen:
The notion of refunds is going to be a very complicated issue. During the oral arguments that the Supreme Court, Justice Amy Coney Barrett said it looked like it would be a complete mess, and she voted in favor of overturning these tariffs. We have to see what kind of technical process they will adopt. Government officials led by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent assured federal courts as these cases were being litigated, that they would provide refunds without the courts needing to wipe out the tariffs entirely as these cases made their way through the court. So the government continued to collect tariffs under the assurance from top government officials that they would distribute refunds if the court ruled against them. Of course, now there is that ruling, but Bessent said that if it got to the point of refunds that they would do it, but that it would be complicated and it could take months or even a year to get all the money back to the importers.
These would be refunds to the companies that brought the materials into the United States and then presumably passed along those costs to their customers here in the United States. So all this debate about refunds, just to be clear, applies to the importers, not to the US consumers who bought something like the items that you mentioned earlier and paid a slightly higher price because of the tariffs.
The Penn Wharton business model has estimated that Americans paid an average of $1,700 a piece in tariffs last year. So it's a significant amount of money at stake. Another estimate has been that it's something like $175 billion that could be refunded, again, to the importers, not to the customers who bought the products, but Democrats have reacted first by saying that they're glad that Trump's policy was struck down. Dick Durbin, senate Democrat from Illinois said that it had been chaotic and essentially was a corrupt process. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker sent Trump an invoice for $8.6 billion saying that he wanted to refund for the roughly 5 million people who paid the higher tariffs in his state.
Dana Taylor:
And finally, what are the likely near term impacts for businesses and consumers?
Bart Jansen:
At the start, businesses will be seeking refunds, as we've talked about. And we have to see whether they will get refunds immediately from the federal government, or Trump suggested during his press conference that litigation that thousands of companies have filed to try to secure refunds already might take two to five years. So for right now, businesses has to just try to claw back the money that they have already paid that the Supreme Court has now ruled was unauthorized. Going forward, there are these new tariff regimes that Trump is going to pursue, and the question will be, will they challenge those tariffs as well? These are fairly long held tariff statutes, and so the legal fight against them could be a little more complicated. Trump has insisted that they've long been upheld, and so there's no way to challenge them. So he's confident that he'll be able to use them.
But for example, the 122 statute that we now have imposed on Saturday, 15% for countries around the world, businesses could potentially challenge that saying that he didn't fit the rules for imposing it, or potentially he could try to extend it beyond the 150 days, just saying, well, each day brings a new and different trade deficit justifying the reason for these temporary tariffs, and try to extend beyond the 150 days, even if Congress doesn't vote to extend it as Congress is authorized to do so.
I think a short answer would be that you should expect more litigation over these tariffs as businesses continue to resist paying these higher costs, and Trump continues to try to impose them. For consumers, I don't think you should expect lower prices at the grocery store or the mall or wherever you're shopping immediately because companies are taking a cautionary approach to not knowing how tariffs might be imposed in the future. Yes, the emergency tariffs have been struck down, but Trump is starting to impose new tariffs. How those match up against the previous amounts is still a little uncertain, and he could continue to raise tariffs under the other statutes that he has available. So I wouldn't go looking for any immediate bargains through tariff reductions.
Dana Taylor:
Bart Jansen is a White House correspondent for USA TODAY. Thank you so much for coming on The Excerpt, Bart.
Bart Jansen:
Thanks for having me.
Dana Taylor:
Thanks for our senior producer Kaely Monahan for her production assistant. Our executive producer is Laura Beatty. Let us note what you think of this episode by sending a note to podcasts@usatoday.com. Thanks for listening. I'm Dana Taylor. I'll be back tomorrow morning with another episode of USA TODAY's The Excerpt.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:SCOTUS' tariff ruling is a deep setback for Trump's economic agenda | The Excerpt
