What to know as SCOTUS weighs Trump's tariffs
Marketplace All-in-One
Marketplace
4.5 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 4 November 2025
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments on Wednesday for and against the legality of President Trump’s signature economic policy: tariffs. In this episode, a lawyer walks us through what’s at stake and how the major questions doctrine may come into play. We also consider whether it’s possible to repay the $90 billion accumulated in tariff revenue should SCOTUS rule against the president, and scrutinize potential ‘plan B’ tariff policies.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We are going to talk about one thing on the program today. One Law. It's a mouthful, |
| 0:07.3 | the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977, how it's being applied here in 2025. |
| 0:15.4 | From American Public Media, this is Marketplace. |
| 0:30.3 | I'm Kai Rizdahl. It is Tuesday, today the 4th of November. |
| 0:32.1 | Good as always to have you along, everybody. |
| 0:37.5 | As I said, we are going to do the whole program today on the law behind President Trump's tariff Paloosa back in April, those very nearly global import taxes that the president says he's |
| 0:43.2 | allowed to do under the provisions of the aforementioned International Emergency Economic |
| 0:47.7 | Powers Act, AIPA, is the shorthand. And it is going to be the topic de jour at the Supreme |
| 0:53.2 | Court of the United States |
| 0:54.4 | tomorrow. We're going to hear from a law professor and some analysts and economists, but we are |
| 0:58.9 | going to start with small business owners. It was small businesses that file the suits that are |
| 1:03.8 | going to be heard tomorrow, and it's small businesses that are being hit most directly. |
| 1:08.7 | Katie Lazare is a general manager at Kane Vineyard and Winery in Napa Valley. Todd Adams is the president of Santa Tube. That's a stainless steel tubing supplier for food manufacturers. We caught him, I should say, at the Houston airport. Hello to you both. Welcome to the program. Thank you. Thanks for having us. Todd, let me start with you, and it's going to be the same question to the both of you. How is your business today versus business, say, a year ago? How's it going? |
| 1:31.0 | To be honest, business remained strong, and we're thankful for that. It is a lot more challenging |
| 1:36.9 | these days. Pricing has been much more fluid than it has ever been in the past, particularly |
| 1:42.5 | on the product that is imported. And in our |
| 1:45.6 | industry, a significant portion of the product is imported because there is no domestic manufacturing. |
| 1:51.8 | We've had to increase prices, and it's largely been accepted by the market. Not sure how |
| 1:59.7 | that's going to play out down the road, because that will, you know, trickle down to the price of consumer goods and food products. |
| 2:07.1 | Right. |
| 2:08.0 | Katie Lazare, same question. |
| 2:09.8 | How's business compared to a year ago? |
... |
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