Donald J. Trump Is A Dolt And Americans Are Paying For His Tariffs, Part 5,932

In a social media post that demonstrates that he either lives in a fantasy world or does not understand basic principles of the economy or civics, Donald Trump on Friday suggested the possibility of a “rehearing or readjudication” of the Supreme Court’s decision that deemed his precious tariffs unconstitutional just last week.

The president floated the insane possibility that the court might not have considered what would happen to the tariffs that were already paid when it declared that he did not have the authority to invoke a rarely used 1970s law to declare vague emergencies and arbitrarily impose these duties on much of the rest of the world.

“The recent Decision of the United States Supreme Court concerning TARIFFS could allow for Hundreds of Billions of Dollars to be returned to Countries and Companies that have been ‘ripping off’ the United States of America for many years, and now, according to this Decision, could actually continue to do so, at an even increased level,” Trump said. “I am sure that the Supreme Court did not have this in mind.”

First of all, that makes as much sense as saying that the court’s ruling reversing Roe v. Wade did not take into account women who wanted to have an abortion in the future.

Sure, the majority did not address the issue of what should happen to the tariffs that had already been paid, since that might have complicated things even further and is not relevant to the central question of whether it was within the scope of the president’s constitutional authority to impose them.

In addition, the dissent of Justice Brett Kavanaugh (to which we will return in a moment) shows that it was part of the deliberations. In fact, we imagine that the debate over the practicability of the ruling was discussed extensively before the majority decided not to touch it.

After all, refunding those who paid for Trump’s illegal tariffs promises to be a complex undertaking because it is not clear who exactly is on the hook for which amount.

But here is the great news for Trump: Zero dollars will go to foreign countries that “ripped off” the US, and none of them will receive the “undeserved windfall” he cited in his post.

We can say that with extreme certainty because, contrary to the president’s flawed understanding of who pays for his tariffs, it certainly wasn’t Canada or China or that island only inhabited by penguins which Trump subjected to import duties of 10 percent.

Instead, the consensus among economists is that American consumers and businesses shouldered the lion’s share of the cost. And by that we mean more than 90 percent, according to the analyses of various government, independent, and international experts.

Based on his post, and everything he has ever said on the issue, Trump still doesn’t understand this basic economic reality that a well-trained goat could grasp.

Kavanaugh, on the other hand, does.

In his dissent, he wrote that the federal government “may be required to refund billions of dollars to importers who paid the [tariffs], even though some importers may have already passed on costs to consumers or others.”

Essentially, what this all means is that Trump doesn’t want to give back the money that his (illegal) actions cost American businesses and consumers.

Democrats, on the other hand, think he ought to.

“In January, you said that issuing tariff refunds ‘won’t be a problem’ for the Treasury, and that ‘if the court says it, we’d have to do it,’” Senate Democrats said Friday in a letter to Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent. “The Court has said it. In a 6-3 ruling, it found that the president exceeded his legal authority. You need to give the people their money back.”

We imagine that the Democrats realize that trying to get Trump to pay anybody who is not himself or a family member will be a tricky undertaking, but they probably do not care because it’ll make an excellent campaign issue that the president refuses to refund consumers and businesses for the money his administration extracted from them.

For his part, Trump seems to be holding out hope that, thanks to his social media post, the Supreme Court will suddenly realize that it had overlooked the issue of refunds and agree to a do-over.

“Is a Rehearing or Readjudication of this case possible???” the president asked.

In this case, we are sorry to inform Trump that it is not… but maybe he can convince the American people that this decision was “stolen” or that the Supreme Court is “rigged.”

That’s worked for him in the past.