A Supreme Tariff Response

On Friday February 20th 2026, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the law (IEEPA) the President was using to manipulate tariffs did not grant the power to tax the US people to the President for more than 150 days. International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) is a law (passed in 1977) that authorizes the president to regulate international commerce after declaring a national emergency in response to any unusual and extraordinary threat to the United States which has its source in whole or substantial part outside the United States. IEEPA is meant to place limits on the President not endow them with unlimited tariff power. IEEPA is also meant to allow the country to react quickly to world events rather than wait for bills to pass through both houses of Congress.

The Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE)

.

Tariffs have caused a lot of disruption in the board game industry in the United States since 2025 when on February 1st there was a blanket tariff 10% put on all imports. Most board games are manufactured in China that are sold in the United States. Tariffs are a tax on goods when they are imported into the United states. If a company bought a game made in China and shipped it to the US then they would pay the tariff on it. At the worst levels last spring a 10 dollar game could have payed 15 dollars in tariffs. That coupled with the instability of know what the tariff would be at any time caused a lot of confusion and pain to companies. Companies tried to soak up the costs themselves or pass on the tariffs to the consumer.

So what does the Supreme Court ruling do for the tariffs? Well currently the tariff rates have gone down they sit at 10% globally but will likely rise to 15% soon. So the ruling did not make the tariffs more predictable. The ruling will force the administration to seek out other laws and methods if they want to continue these micro trade wars. There are a host of laws available to the government to enact tariffs much as we saw in the Supreme Court ruling it is how the administration chooses to use them that matters. Learning Resources, Inc, an education toy and game company lead the charge in getting their case to the Supreme Court.

The tariff money collected so far was not addressed at all in the Supreme Court ruling. There was no mechanism or method of refund provided in the ruling. Many larger companies are now suing the administration to get refunds on the tariffs they paid. This is likely not to trickle down to the consumer if those costs were passed through. So it was a big win and some companies may get their money back but the tariff war may still be going on with all it's unpredictability.