Tariff decision: How even Trump’s hand-picked Supreme Court judges went against him

The US Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision on Thursday, struck down President Donald Trump’s sweeping global tariffs. The court ruled that Trump had exceeded his authority by using the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) — a law meant for national emergencies — to impose tariffs. This was a stunning rebuke for the President, especially from a court with a heavy conservative majority. In fact, two of the judges who ruled against the tariffs were appointed by Trump during his first term in office. In response, the US President held a furious 45-minute press conference where he went after all of these judges, including his handpicked appointees, and claimed, extraordinarily, that the Supreme Court had “been swayed by foreign interests”. Trump’s comments were a highly unusual attack on the nine-member Supreme Court, which has six members appointed by his Republican party and has often ruled in his favour. Here is a look at the composition of the court, how it has frequently backed Trump’s policies — and the rare occasions when it hasn’t. The justices The US Supreme Court has nine judges. Its six conservative faces are Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. Of these six, Roberts, who wrote the majority opinion, was a George W Bush pick. Gorsuch and Coney Barrett were appointed by Trump in his first term in office. All three ruled against Trump’s tariffs, splintering the conservative majority and joining the three judges from the liberal wing — Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. “When Congress grants the power to impose tariffs, it does so clearly and with careful constraints. It did neither in IEEPA,” Chief Justice Roberts said in the majority opinion. “The Framers did not vest any part of the taxing power in the Executive Branch.” Like Roberts, Gorsuch too backed the power of Congress in his concurring opinion. But the Trump-appointed judge’s comments were even stronger. “Yes, legislating can be hard and take time. And yes, it can be tempting to bypass Congress when some pressing problem arises,” he wrote. “But the deliberative nature of the legislative process was the whole point of its design. Through that process, the nation can tap the combined wisdom of the people’s elected representatives, not just that of one faction or man.” Only Thomas, Alito and Kavanaugh (also a Trump pick) backed the policy. When has the court backed Trump? With the conservative majority stacked up, the court has delivered a series of emergency interim rulings in favour of Trump over the past year, helping nullify the opposition his administration has faced from lower courts. Emergency rulings are essentially interim decisions that remain in place until a case is finally resolved. Here are just a few examples: Banning transgender persons from military Shortly after taking office for his second term in January 2025, Trump signed two executive orders banning transgender persons from serving in the military A lower federal court blocked the move in March. But in May, the Supreme Court temporarily allowed Trump to enforce his ban amid other legal challenges to the policy. Withholding foreign aid In late August 2025, Trump told House Speaker Mike Johnson that he would not spend $4.9 billion in foreign aid that had already been approved by the US Congress. This sudden withdrawal of foreign aid sparked widespread concerns about vulnerable people worldwide losing access to food supplies and development programmes. Here, too, a similar pattern followed. A lower court in Washington DC ordered the administration to release the foreign aid funds by the end of September. The administration then moved the Supreme Court, which, in September, cleared the way for it to continue to withhold billions. This reduction in foreign aid became a hallmark Trump policy. Removing migrant protections The second Trump administration withdrew temporary deportation protections that allowed more than a million immigrants from countries such as Venezuela and Haiti to live and work in the US legally. The Supreme Court overturned two lower court rulings in favour of the temporary protected status (TPS), once in May and again in October. The top court’s orders stripped deportation protection from around 6,50,000 Venezuelans. Congress created TPS in 1990 to prevent deportations to countries suffering from natural disasters, civil strife or other dangerous conditions Education Department cuts In March, the Trump administration decimated the US Department of Education, firing more than 1,300 employees in a single day. A federal judge reinstated the workers, but yet again the Supreme Court stepped in. In July, it cleared the way for the administration to continue dismantling the Department of Education. Its size has now been halved to 2,000 employees. Besides these major moves, the court also allowed the US DOGE agency access to sensitive data, helped Trump cancel nearly $800 million in grants for research on issues that affected minority and gay communities, and backed his removal of the heads of independent government agencies. But its most crucial move came in 2024, when Trump was not even in power. In July of that year, it ruled that former presidents have broad immunity from prosecution. This was a huge boost to Trump who was then facing a criminal case on charges that he plotted to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss. The small acts of dissent, and what now The court has also pushed back against Trump in a few instances over the last year, most crucially in December. It refused to allow Trump to send National Guard troops into the state of Illinois over the objections of its governor. The administration had cited attacks on ICE personnel as the reason for its move, but both lower courts and the top court rejected its arguments. In March last year, Chief Justice Roberts rejected calls for impeaching judges after Trump demanded the removal of one who ruled against his deportation plans. Last month, the Supreme Court justices also raised questions about Trump’s efforts to remove Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve Board, citing concerns about the implications for central bank independence. The decision is likely to come later this year. Another pivotal issue that is coming up before the top court this year is Trump’s push to end birthright citizenship. Experts feel Trump could face setbacks in these two cases as well. But the top court will also issue an opinion on whether Trump can fire the heads of independent agencies without cause, something likely to go in Trump’s favour.