When a Supreme Court Ruling Changes Nothing
The Supreme Court struck down President Trump's tariff policy on Thursday, according to The Guardian. By Friday, the administration's trade officer declared that U.S. tariff policy "hasn't changed," The Guardian reported. The same day, Trump signed an executive order imposing a 10% global tariff, a different legal instrument, same economic effect.
This isn't a legal technicality. It's a test of whether judicial review still functions as a constraint on executive power, or whether it's become a procedural delay that determined presidents can simply work around.
The Workaround Mechanism
The Supreme Court's ruling targeted tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, declaring them unlawful, The Guardian reported. The administration's response wasn't to comply, it was to rebuild using different authority. Executive orders don't require the same statutory justification that the Court just rejected. They're faster to issue, harder to challenge, and can be rewritten as quickly as courts strike them down.
This creates a procedural asymmetry. A Supreme Court case takes months or years to reach decision. An executive order takes hours to draft and sign. If the executive branch can issue new orders faster than courts can invalidate old ones, the constitutional check becomes a revolving door rather than a barrier.
The pattern extends beyond tariffs. Judges have grown angry over the Trump administration violating their orders, The New York Times reported, a phrase that suggests not isolated incidents but systematic defiance. When judicial anger becomes a recurring theme, the system isn't working as designed.
Who Bears the Cost
FedEx filed suit seeking refunds for tariffs paid under the now-unlawful policy, ABC13 reported. The lawsuit exposes an uncomfortable question: What happens to money collected under illegal authority?
The scale of economic impact extends far beyond one shipping company. U.S. importers paid billions in tariffs under the struck-down policy, according to trade data cited by The Guardian. FedEx has legal resources to pursue recovery. Most importers, manufacturers, and retailers who paid inflated prices under the struck-down tariffs don't. Small and mid-sized businesses, from electronics importers to clothing retailers, absorbed costs, raised prices, or ate losses without the legal budgets to challenge federal policy in court.
The Supreme Court's ruling doesn't automatically reverse those transactions. It doesn't refund the tariffs paid by small businesses that can't afford multi-year litigation. It declares the policy unlawful, but the economic damage already happened.
The new 10% global tariff, imposed by executive order, starts the clock again, The Guardian reported. Companies now face a choice: pay tariffs that might be ruled illegal later, or refuse and face immediate penalties. The Supreme Court's ruling hasn't eliminated uncertainty, it's created a new kind, where compliance with current policy might mean paying for something courts will later declare you never owed.
The Constitutional Stress Test
The Supreme Court is supposed to be the final word on what's lawful. That principle assumes losing parties accept the ruling and change behavior accordingly. But what if they don't?
The Court has no enforcement mechanism beyond the executive branch it's ruling against. It can declare tariffs unlawful, but it can't stop new tariffs from being imposed under different legal theories. It can order compliance, but if judges "growing angry" is the strongest consequence for violation, the incentive structure is clear: defy, delay, and redeploy.
This isn't unique to tariffs. Recent coverage shows a pattern, states losing budget control to federal cuts they can't challenge, utilities escaping state regulation through federal preemption, according to reporting across multiple outlets. The theme is institutional authority becoming negotiable. Courts rule, but whether those rulings actually constrain action is increasingly optional.
PBS noted the question now is whether Trump can still impose tariffs after the Supreme Court ruling. The answer appears to be yes, just using different paperwork. That's not a legal loophole, it's a revelation about how the system functions when one branch decides judicial review is advisory rather than binding.
What Happens Next
The 10% global tariff will likely face its own legal challenges, according to legal experts quoted by Al Jazeera. Those challenges will take months to work through courts. During that time, the tariff remains in effect, money gets collected, and economic decisions get made based on a policy that might later be ruled unlawful.
If that tariff falls, there's no reason to think the pattern won't repeat. New executive order, new legal justification, new round of litigation. Al Jazeera raised the question of whether Trump can continue imposing tariffs, the evidence suggests the answer depends less on legal authority than on willingness to keep issuing orders faster than courts can strike them down.
FedEx's lawsuit will test whether companies can recover money paid under policies the Supreme Court declares illegal, ABC13 reported. That case matters beyond the specific refund, it establishes whether judicial rulings have retroactive force, or whether they only apply going forward, leaving past violations as fait accompli. For the thousands of smaller importers who paid tariffs under the unlawful policy, the outcome will determine whether they have any recourse or simply bear the cost of an illegal policy as a permanent loss.
The Supreme Court ruled. The policy continues. That gap is the story.