For a while, the U.S. government¡¯s tariff policy has been plunged into several domestic judicial lawsuits, and the U.S. International Trade Court and the U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeal two judicial ¡°red cards¡±. The U.S. Supreme Court announced yesterday that it will quickly review the legitimacy of the majority tariffs imposed by the government, scheduled for the first week of November to hear the oral debate.

Experts analyze that the ongoing lawsuits involving tariff policy in the United States are due to the fact that the practical usefulness of the policy and the process of formulation has caused great controversy. at the same time, the incident also reflects the many deep crises in the current American political system.

The scene of "the United States sues the United States" is constantly staged

The Trump administration¡¯s tariff policy has impacted the U.S. domestic economy, and there are obvious procedural flaws, raising widespread domestic doubt about the rationality of the policy.

The tariffs that the U.S. Supreme Court will consider include: President Trump¡¯s citation of the International Emergency Economic Power Act of 1977, a ¡°reference tariff¡± of 10 percent imposed on the world, higher tariffs imposed on trading partners who have not reached a trade agreement with the U.S., and the so-called ¡°Fentanyl tariffs.¡±

In May this year, the U.S. International Trade Court in New York ruled that the President had no right to invoke the International Emergency Economic Power Act to impose the said tariffs. On August 29, the U.S. Federal Circular Court of Appeal handed over the Trump administration¡¯s appeal and upheld the ruling with a vote of 7 to 4. The ruling argued that the International Emergency Economic Power Act authorized the President to adopt certain economic measures in emergencies to address ¡°abnormal and special threats¡±, but the taxation power was granted to Congress exclusively by the Constitution, and the President could not use the law to impose a unified tariff on almost all commodities. Several judges said at the previous hearing that the White House had failed to prove that the so-called ¡°trade deficit¡± constitut

On September 3, local time, the Trump administration formally appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the ruling of the Federal Circular Court of Appeal and demanded the Supreme Court¡¯s swift trial.

In recent months, the scene of ¡°America prosecuting the United States¡± has continued to take place around tariff policy. According to US media reports, the Trump administration has faced more than a dozen lawsuits involving tariff policy, the plaintiffs include state governments, small, legal groups and so on.

In an interview with the reporter of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Yuan Zhao, deputy director of the American Research Institute, analyzed that the tariff policy of the Trump administration has been appealed to justice several times, reflecting its many controversies at home.

On the one hand, the policy has not only impacted the U.S. domestic economy, pushed up inflation levels, exacerbated the burden of people's lives, but also directly affected the domestic interest groups that depend on overseas investment and import and export trade, and also impacted the U.S. participation in building the post-war international economic order and the multilateral trade system within the framework of the WTO. Multiple influence overlap, raising domestic widespread questions about the rationality of the policy. On the other hand, the U.S. Constitution stipulates that the right to impose tariffs belongs to the Congress, and the Trump administration circumvented the Congress and operated the International Emergency Economic Power Act as a basis for the imposition of tariffs through executive orders, thus raising disputes

Since the International Emergency Economic Powers Act came into effect in 1977, Trump is the first US president to invoke the law to impose tariffs. According to statistics from the Budget Laboratory of Yale University in the United States, as of the beginning of August, the effective tariff rate of imported products in the United States was close to 19%, the highest since the Great Depression, and significantly higher than the tariff rate of only 2 to 3 percentage points in the modern and contemporary United States. It is estimated that the price level raised by high tariffs may cause American families to spend an average of $2,400 more per year. According to a latest poll by CBS, nearly 60% of the American people don't approve of the government's current trade and tariff policies, and 40% of the American people say that the government's abuse of tariff policies has led to a decline in the purchasing power of local people.

What are the prospects of tariff policy?

This judicial confrontation around the Trump administration¡¯s ¡°tariff power¡± ¡°is not only a trade policy dispute, but also a verification of the limits of authority of the U.S. president in the Constitution.¡±

According to the U.S. three-power separation system design, Congress belongs to the legislative body, and the Federal Supreme Court as a judicial body is an important force to restrict government executive power. Yuan Zhao pointed out that in recent years, the U.S. two parties in Congress struggle increasingly intense, uncompromising, many laws are undergoing long debate.

Analysts pointed out that this judicial confrontation around the Trump administration¡¯s ¡°tariff rights¡± ¡°is not only a trade policy dispute, but also a verification of the limits of the authority of the U.S. President in the Constitution.¡±

The tariff case was pushed to the U.S. Supreme Court, what are the prospects?

"Judging from the current composition of the Supreme Court, six of the nine justices are conservatives, and three of them were nominated by Trump during his first term. The situation is favorable to the Trump administration." Yuan Zheng analyzed. Therefore, it has been speculated that the Supreme Court may be inclined to support the Trump administration's expansion of executive power-in many previous cases in which lower courts obstructed White House policies, the Supreme Court mostly supported the administrative authorities in a "no additional explanation" way.

However, some legal experts have analyzed that the Supreme Court of the United States has strengthened the "principle of major issues" and "principle of non-authorization" in many cases in recent years, emphasizing that the executive branch must obtain the clear authorization of Congress when it comes to major economic and political decisions. This trend shows that the judiciary is wary of the unlimited expansion of executive power, which may also become the key to influencing the judgment.

According to Bloomberg, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and other officials have recently pressured the Supreme Court to emphasize that if a ruling against the government is made, the U.S. tariffs will be expected to return up to $1 trillion by June next year, which would be "catastrophic".The White House also stressed that the unfavorable ruling will also affect the U.S. current foreign trade agreement and unfinished trade negotiations.

If the White House side wins, it means that the U.S. Supreme Court recognizes that the president has unilateral power over trade policy, which will allow the president¡¯s executive power to expand and increase the uncontrollability of future trade policy. At the same time, the real consideration cannot be ignored ¨C if the relevant tax policy is completely overthrown, the U.S. finance and foreign trade or will face a greater shock, one possible result is that the Supreme Court adopts a solution under comprehensive consideration: on the one hand, stressing that the right to levy taxes belongs to Congress, on the other hand, recognizes that the president can take temporary tariff measures under some ¡°special conditions¡±.

Highlight the structural problems of "American *"

When the executive power of the White House continues to expand, overwhelming Congress and the Supreme Court, the American system will face collapse

In addition to the tariff policy, the Trump administration's policies such as the "international ban on recruitment", immigration deportation plan, and abolishment of federal agencies and employees forced by executive orders have caused widespread controversy in China, and many policies have been questioned by American legal professionals as "ultra vires and unconstitutional". Owen Chemelinsky, dean of the University of California, Berkeley Law School, bluntly said that the Trump administration had "systematic unconstitutional and illegal acts".

According to the U.S. Legal Research Agency, the Trump administration has faced hundreds of lawsuits in the United States. The American Today article says that the Trump administration and the judiciary are entering a ¡°total war.¡±

At the same time, the field of justice has become an important battlefield for the U.S. party struggle ¨C in March this year, 21 Democratic state prosecutors filed lawsuits against the Trump administration over the Department of Education¡¯s job cuts; in May, the 12 state prosecutors who joined forces to prosecute the Trump administration over tariff policies, and the governors of 10 of which were Democratic.

The so-called ¡°judicial independence¡± of the long-standing U.S. rankings is also questionable. The New York Times commentary says that as U.S. polarization intensifies, the Federal Supreme Court cannot ¡°overcome politics¡±.

As three-power separation and party balancing gradually failed in polarized politics, the deep crisis of the U.S. political system was further highlighted. There are American scholars who estimate that Congress failed because of party disputes, and the level of justice slid because of power. When the White House executive power continues to expand, overwhelming Congress and the Supreme Court, the U.S. system will face collapse.

Yuan Zheng pointed out that the Trump administration advocates "governing the country by executive order", and its policy is obviously biased towards right-wing conservatism, which aggravates the political polarization and social tearing in the United States, and makes the structural problems of "American *" increasingly prominent. On the one hand, the imbalance between the three powers at the federal level has become increasingly prominent, the operation efficiency of Congress is sluggish, and judicial justice has been disturbed. At the same time, the contradiction between the federal government and the state continues to emerge, and the power check and balance mechanism faces the risk of failure. On the other hand, the differences between the two parties are serious, and it is increasingly difficult to reach a political consensus, which leads to the obvious partisan color of government policies, and it is easy for the new government to swing violently or even be completely overthrown after taking office, wasting a lot of social resources and damaging people's livelihood and well-being. In the long run, it will also affect the international image and soft power of the United States.

(Our reporter Li Jiabao)

People's Daily Overseas Edition (September 17, 2025, 08th Edition)