94 THE US-ISRAEL | Legal Review 2025/26 rates on Chinese goods that ultimately reached an effective 145%, and “reciprocal” tariffs of at least 10% on imports from all trading partners, with dozens of nations facing higher rates. The tariffs were modified repeatedly, with rates shifting from day to day and product categories moving in and out of the framework. Two sets of plaintiffs—small businesses and a coalition of states—challenged the tariffs, arguing that IEEPA does not authorize the President to impose them. The lower courts agreed, and the Supreme Court granted certiorari on an expedited basis. The Court’s Holding In a 6–3 decision, the Supreme Court held that IEEPA does not authorize the President to impose tariffs. Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the Court on the core statutory question, emphasized that Article I of the Constitution vests the taxing power—including the “very clear” branch of that power encompassing tariffs—in Congress alone, and that the “Framers did not vest any part of the taxing power in the Executive Branch.” IEEPA authorizes the President to “investigate, block during the pendency of an investigation, regulate, direct and compel, nullify, void, prevent or prohibit . . . importation or exportation.” The Court found that “regulate,” as ordinarily used, means to “fix, establish, or control” or to “subject to governing principles or laws”—a definition that “is not usually thought to include: taxation.” IEEPA’s nine listed verbs authorize distinct actions a President might take in sanctioning foreign actors, but none includes the “distinct and extraordinary power to raise revenue.” Moreover, when Congress has delegated tariff power in other statutes, it has consistently done so using explicit terms like “duty” or “surcharge” and has imposed strict limits on duration, amount, and procedure. Three Justices—Roberts, Gorsuch, and Barrett—further relied on the “major questions doctrine,” reasoning that the President must “point to clear congressional authorization” when claiming an extraordinary power. They found it “telling” that in IEEPA’s half century of existence, no President had invoked the statute to impose tariffs, a “‘lack of historical precedent,’ coupled with the breadth of authority” that the President now claimed, suggesting the asserted power exceeded the statute’s reach. Justice Kagan, joined by Justices Sotomayor and Jackson, agreed on the statutory analysis but declined to invoke the major questions doctrine, concluding that “ordinary principles of statutory interpretation amply support today’s result.” Justice Kavanaugh, joined by Justices Thomas and Alito, dissented, arguing that the power to “regulate . . . importation” has historically been understood to encompass tariffs, and that the Court erred in applying the major questions doctrine in the foreign affairs context for the first time. Justice Kavanaugh argued that any “citizens or Member of Congress in 1977 [when IEEPA was enacted] who somehow thought that the ‘regulate . . . importation’ language in IEEPA excluded tariffs would have had their heads in the sand.” Broader Significance Learning Resources is a landmark in the separation of powers, asserting that Congress’s “birthright” taxing power cannot be delegated through vague statutory language, even in the context of declared national emergencies. The internal disagreement among the Justices is also noteworthy. The six-Justice majority agreed on the result but divided on methodology. Three Justices relied on the major questions doctrine as a necessary supplement, and applied it, for the first time, in the sphere of foreign affairs, a move the dissent warned could “engender significant uncertainty over the Executive’s exercise of statutory authority” in that realm. Three other justices viewed ordinary statutory interpretation as sufficient. This methodological fracture may prove significant in future cases testing the boundaries of presidential power under broadly worded statutes, particularly in the foreign affairs context. For Israeli legal professionals, the decision is instructive on several fronts. Israel’s own constitutional order, grounded in Basic Laws rather than a single written constitution, grapples with analogous questions about the scope of executive authority and the limits of emergency powers. The Learning Resources majority’s insistence that “emergency powers tend to kindle emergencies” and that delegations of the taxing power require clear authorization echoes concerns familiar to any legal system in which executives have historically invoked security or economic crises to justify expansive action. More practically, for any Israeli businesses engaged in trade with the United States, the decision provides a measure of certainty that IEEPA cannot serve as a vehicle for unilateral presidential tariffs—although the Court acknowledged, and the dissent emphasized, that other statutory authorities may authorize many of the same measures with additional procedural safeguards. The dissent specifically identified the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 (Section 232), the Trade Act of 1974 (Sections 122, 201, and 301), and the Tariff Act of 1930 (Section 338) as statutes that may continue to authorize presidential tariff actions. The practical upshot is that the executive’s tariff toolkit remains
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