Liberation by Fiat

How emergency law became the White House’s tariff weapon.

The week’s quiet tell isn’t a leak—it’s a hearing. On Wednesday, November 5, the Supreme Court will take up whether a president can use the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to slap tariffs on almost everything that enters the country—no Congress, no debate, just a pen and a pretext. Lower courts have already ruled most of these tariffs illegal. The administration appealed. Now the justices decide whether emergency powers swallow Article I. [Reuters]

The press will cover it as trade policy. It’s not. This is about the architecture of power—whether a statute designed for sanctions on hostile actors can be stretched into a permanent tax lever against the American economy itself. If the Court blesses it, emergency becomes routine governance. If the Court slaps it down, watch for a fast-track attempt to re-delegate the same authority under new branding. Either way, the operation is already in motion.

They called the April blitz “Liberation Day.” The courts called it something else: ultra vires—beyond legal authority. Yet the tariffs were kept in place long enough to bite while appeals moved. That timing wasn’t accidental; it never is. [Le Monde.fr]