Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, VITAL BRIEFING—Trump takes tariff case to the Supreme Court, (Sep 5, 2025)
Upholding the appellate court’s decision would allow businesses to demand refunds of much of the record $158 billion in tariffs collected so far, and could trigger an economic calamity on the scale of the 1929 Great Depression, according to President Trump.
In this edition of Tariffs Insights, Thomas Thompson discusses the high stakes litigation surrounding V.O.S. Selections, Inc. v. Trump., the case that challenged the sweeping tariffs President Trump imposed back in April of this year on “Liberation Day.” In particular, the piece focuses on the recently issued decision in the case from the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit which upheld a lower court ruling that determined the president lacked authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose “tariffs of unlimited duration on nearly all goods from nearly every country in the world.” The President’s immediate call for the Supreme Court to reverse the lower courts and uphold his vast array of tariffs is also reviewed.
Some of the issues Thompson explores in the article include:
The rational for the appeals court’s decision in that IEEPA does not permit the president to respond to an emergency with tariffs, as the statute neither mentions tariffs (or any of its synonyms) nor has procedural safeguards that contain clear limits on the President’s power to impose tariffs.
The widely differing circumstances under which the 1977 IEEPA law has been invoked, which included freezing Iranian assets held in U.S. financial institutions by President Carter during the Iranian hostage crisis. Additionally, the use of the statute has sometimes resulted in controversy as it has been invoked to deal with the proliferation of chemical and biological weapons, weapons of mass destruction, hostile foreign governments, terrorism, transnational crime, cyberattacks, and human rights abuses.
President Trump immediately issued a vigorous response to the Federal Circuit’s decision where he derided the judicial body for being a “Radical Left Court” which he claimed is attempting to “to bring down or disturb the largest amount of money, wealth creation and influence the U.S.A. has ever seen.” The president also asserted that court should have issued its decision long ago, and that its recent action puts the United States in 1929 style jeopardy.
To read the article, click Trump takes tariff case to the Supreme Court.
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