Tariffs Ruling Plunges Trump Into Political and Economic Chaos

The ruling by the United States' top court comes just days before his State of the Union address on Tuesday -- a crucial moment for any president.

It also comes as the campaign heats up for the midterm elections in November, in which his Republican Party is defending a slender majority in Congress -- at a time when voters appear increasingly sour on the state of the economy.

"Without tariffs, this country would be in so much trouble right now," the Republican billionaire told supporters in Georgia on Thursday evening.

"We're taking in hundreds of billions of dollars," he said. "We're going to be taking in next year $900 billion in tariffs, unless the Supreme Court said you can't do it."

On Friday morning, the Supreme Court said just that.

It was an extraordinary rebuke from a body that he himself has shaped, appointing conservative-leaning justices that have skewed the panel.

A 6-3 majority of those justices said Trump's decision to impose what he called "reciprocal" tariffs was an overstepping of his authority -- echoing what many legal experts have said about the policy.

- Liberation -

Warnings from legal thinkers had done little to discourage Trump's headlong rush to impose import taxes on goods coming into the United States, as he pushed at the limits of presidential power and rode roughshod over both the judiciary and Congress.

He presented his levies at the White House in April, an event he dubbed "Liberation Day" for a country he claimed had been "ripped off" for decades by its trading partners.

He promised spectacular benefits for American families who he said would receive generous tax cuts.

And he claimed American and foreign companies would rush to open factories in the United States to avoid having to pay such duties, heralding a new golden age of manufacturing in a country whose industrial base has been hollowed out over decades.

The president claimed his protectionist policies would result in a staggering $18 trillion of new investment in the US economy -- a figure that raised skeptical eyebrows among economists.

- Midterms and diplomacy -

American voters are also unconvinced.

Trump campaigned hard on a pledge to lower the cost of living for consumers, but shoppers have noticed that not only are prices not coming down, tariffs are actually making things more expensive.

That is bad news for Republicans staring down the barrel of the November elections when all seats in the House of Representatives and a third of those in the Senate are up for election.

A Congress controlled by Democrats -- angry at Trump's aggressive immigration policy -- could launch another impeachment attempt against him.

The reverberations of Friday's Supreme Court decision will likely be felt around the world.

Tariffs are the administration's main foreign policy tool, the one Trump says underpin the peace-building efforts he often boasts about.

"I settled eight wars. Of the eight wars, at least six were settled because of tariffs," he told Fox News last week.

On Thursday at the inaugural meeting of his Board of Peace, he said tariffs had defused tensions between India and Pakistan.

"I said, 'Listen, I'm not doing trade deals with you two guys if you don't settle this up' ... And they do a lot of business with the United States, and they sort of softened up all of a sudden.

"All of a sudden I read where there was a little bit of a pullback by one and the other; all of a sudden we work out a deal."

Trade talks hurriedly corralled over the last 12 months under the threat of tariffs -- like those with the European Union of with Britain -- might also now stutter.

On the domestic front the administration's budget plans are in disarray with the removal of a huge revenue source threatening to imperil the large tax cuts Trump has promised.

And will he have to give the cash back?

California Governor Gavin Newsom on Friday said he would have to stump up.

"These tariffs were nothing more than an illegal cash grab that drove up prices and hurt working families," he said.

"Every dollar unlawfully taken must be refunded immediately -- with interest. Cough up!"