The White House is spinning its wheels trying to come up with a coherent message about what comes next for President Donald Trump’s nonsensical and damaging trade policy, after a court on Wednesday night unanimously ruled that his destructive “Liberation Day” tariffs were illegal and blocked Trump from enforcing them.
A three-judge panel on the United States Court of International Trade ruled that “the Constitution assigns Congress the exclusive powers to ‘lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises,’ and to ‘regulate Commerce with foreign Nations,’” and that Trump’s 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico, the 30% tariff on Chinese products, and the blanket 10% “Liberation Day” tariffs on nearly every country on the planet, “exceed any authority granted to the President.”
Some Trump administration officials are attacking the court—a tried and true strategy for the White House that has seen many of Trump’s lawless actions blocked by the judicial branch
“We are living under a judicial tyranny,” top Trump White House adviser and abhorrent creep Stephen Miller wrote in a post on X on Thursday morning. On Wednesday night after the ruling, Miller also fired off an initial attack on X, saying, “The judicial coup is out of control.”
White House deputy press secretary Kush Desai made similarly gross attacks on the court, even though one of the judges who issued the ruling was appointed by Trump himself.
“It is not for unelected judges to decide how to properly address a national emergency,” Desai said in a statement. “President Trump pledged to put America First, and the Administration is committed to using every lever of executive power to address this crisis and restore American Greatness.”
Others said that Trump will still be making trade deals, and that the court ruling won’t get in Trump’s way—even though Trump promised 90 deals in 90 days when Trump initially lowered the “Liberation Day” tariffs and not a single deal has been inked.
“This trade negotiation season has been really, really effective for the American people and it’s unfortunate that people would attack it, as the journalists did or the way the judges just did,” National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said in an appearance on Fox Business.
The Trump administration, for its part, has already said it is appealing the decision, so the battle is not yet over.
“I’m sure, when we appeal, this decision will be overturned,” Hassett said in the same Fox Business appearance.
However, the ruling is unequivocally a major blow to Trump’s trade policy, which is now for the most part paused. (The tariffs Trump placed on steel and aluminum imports, as well as on cars and car parts, are still in effect.)
The ruling is also a win for Americans who will—at least for now—not be faced with massive inflation sparked by the tariffs.
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But given that Trump and the White House are not giving up on tariffs, experts say the economy—which experts said was teetering on the brink thanks to the insane import fees—is not out of the woods yet.
“The ruling may provide temporary relief to consumers and businesses but injects long-term uncertainty into trade policy and negotiations,” Goldman Sachs wrote in a summary of the court ruling’s impacts on the economy.