Are Trump's "reciprocal" tariffs legal or not?
Marketplace All-in-One
Marketplace
4.5 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 3 November 2025
⏱️ 9 minutes
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Summary
That's the question before the Supreme Court this week. President Donald Trump has been declaring an emergency and then using emergency authority to impose many of these tariffs. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is among those who've said they expect to prevail in the high court, but if they don't, there are other ways to apply taxes on goods from other countries. Also: BP shale asset sales and a dark side of the drug rehab industry.
Transcript
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| 0:31.3 | The Trump team's big tariff toolbox. |
| 0:35.9 | I'm David Brancaccio in Los Angeles. This is the week the Supreme Court hears |
| 0:40.6 | oral arguments about whether President Trump's preferred method of imposing what he calls |
| 0:44.8 | reciprocal tariffs is legal or not. It's the strategy of declaring an emergency and then using |
| 0:50.3 | emergency authority. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is among those who've said they expect to prevail in the High Court, but if they do not, get used to it. There are many other ways to apply taxes on stuff from other countries. To start the week, let's consult economist Julia Coronado, founder of macro policy perspectives, out of Austin. |
| 1:08.1 | There are other legal paths to imposing tariffs if the current legal path, which is based on the U.S. economy being in a state of emergency, you know, if that is struck down, there are other legal paths to reimpose tariffs through other channels. |
| 1:22.8 | Yeah, just looking at the list. Section 122, Trade Act of 1974. You don't like that? They got Section 338 of the |
| 1:30.3 | Tariff Act of 1930. There's also Congress the way it's supposed to work, right? |
| 1:35.3 | There's supposed to be a congressional authorization of a tariff, and that's precisely what's |
| 1:40.9 | before the Supreme Court this week. And Congress certainly has been missing an |
| 1:45.8 | action on this. But you make an important point, which is often the administration casts tariffs |
| 1:51.0 | as a way to right trade wrongs and bring jobs back to America. But it's an import tax, and it raises |
| 1:57.9 | a lot of money to pay for what they want to spend on. That's right. The revenue has |
| 2:02.2 | been growing steadily as they impose more tariffs, not less. And so it's become quite temptation for |
| 2:09.9 | the administration to lean on this as a source of revenues, even as they say cut corporate |
| 2:14.8 | taxes. They're raising taxes through another channel. |
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