A subset of Trump tariffs get their day in court, the high court.

I'm David Brancaccio in Los Angeles. The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments today on whether the president can use emergency powers to impose tariffs.

A series of lower courts have ruled against the president. Marketplaces Nancy Marshall-Gensar will be monitoring.

Today's hearing focuses on two cases the Supreme Court consolidated. They were brought by a group of

states and businesses who say they're being hurt by President Trump's tariffs. Henrietta Tray's,

co-founder of the consulting firm Veda Partners, says one lead plaintiff is an Illinois toy company that brought its case.

Because the tariffs are punitive and have materially hurt their business to the point of making

them borderline bankrupt. The company learning resources says it'll pay about $100 million in

import taxes this year, up from around $2 million last year.

President Trump imposed these tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of

1977 or Aieppa.

Elizabeth Goitin is an attorney at the Brennan Center for Justice, which filed a friend of the

court brief in support of learning resources.

There's a long list of actions that a president can take under AEPA. That list does not include the

word tariffs. Another plaintiff argument, tariffs are taxes, and only Congress has the power to tax,

but it didn't specifically delegate that power to the president.

Alden Abbott was General Counsel for the Federal Trade Commission in the first Trump administration.

He's now at the Mercatus Center.

He says the Trump administration is arguing that AEPA gives the president broad emergency powers

and that the U.S. trade imbalance is an emergency because the trade deficits

have national security implications. The president's lawyers also say Aiba lets the president

regulate trade and tariffs are part of that, even if the law doesn't specifically mention them.

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