High Court Casts Doubt on Basis for Trump’s Trade War

Three of the six members of the US Supreme Court’s GOP-appointed supermajority expressed skepticism at arguments by Donald Trump’s lawyers in support of a key weapon in his global trade war. They joined Democratic-appointed justices in assailing Trump’s use of a law that on its face doesn’t seem to allow for many of the tariffs he’s imposed.

The supermajority, which includes three Trump picks, has spent much of the year putting its imprimatur on most of the president’s efforts to centralize power in the Oval Office. In many of those White House victories, they deferred (albeit provisionally) to Trump on matters that have historically and constitutionally been considered the purview of Congress.