Editorial: Here’s How President Donald Trump Should Frame Tuesday’s Big Speech After Supreme Court Tariff Rebuke

If President Donald Trump played by conventional rules, he would use Tuesday night’s State of the Union address to reset both his presidency and his relationship with Congress.

Consider: His standing in the polls is abysmal, and his signature 3-in-1 tool — willy-nilly tariffs — for managing the economy, replenishing a depleted U.S. Treasury and conducting foreign affairs just was eviscerated by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Alas, Trump rose to the White House in no small part by refusing to follow the conventions of politics. No such pivot is likely.

But there’s growing evidence that a solid majority of Americans, and some important institutional players who heretofore have given Trump great leeway to pursue his chaotic impulses, greatly desire a return to normalcy. Exhibit A was the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling on Friday that Trump had exceeded the authority granted the president by Congress when he claimed the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act enabled him to impose tariffs on goods from other countries essentially at any time and for any amount for as long as he wished.

The lead opinion, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, laid out the rationale. But it was the concurrence of Justice Neil Gorsuch, the first of Trump’s three appointees sitting today on the court, that likely will be remembered years hence. That’s due to its stirring reaffirmation of Congress’ role in decisions as important as imposing substantial tariffs on American trading partners.

“Yes, legislation can be hard and take time,” Gorsuch wrote. “And, yes, it can be tempting to bypass Congress when some pressing problem arises. But the deliberative nature of the legislative process was the whole point of its design.”

We especially liked what he said a bit later: Within Congress, “deliberation tempers impulse, and compromise hammers disagreements into workable solutions. And because laws must earn such broad support to survive the legislative process, they tend to endure, allowing ordinary people to plan their lives in ways they cannot when the rules shift from day to day.”

Moral questions aside, we’re not sure we’ve seen a better summary of the flaws of Trump 2.0 than that. Whatever a governing party’s ideology, it should seek in furthering its policies to establish an order on which people and businesses can rely as they make decisions about their futures. Trump’s mercurial nature is the antithesis of that approach and often ends up impelling people and businesses to adopt a defensive crouch, even including those Trump wants to incentivize into action (such as manufacturers).

A President Trump willing to engage with Congress, including Democrats, on issues where both parties can find middle ground would help Trump reassure some of the independents who’ve abandoned him and more broadly bring some element of normalcy back to our political discourse.

Fortunately, there is just such an issue that both Democrats in Congress and Trump himself recently have endorsed, at least in broad terms. In early January, as Trump was responding to the political reverberations from the shooting death of Renee Good by a federal immigration agent in Minneapolis, the president told a reporter he would “love to be able to do something” for so-called Dreamers, immigrants brought to the U.S. as young children whose legal status is in question. “I’d really love to have a comprehensive immigration strategy,” Trump said. “Something that really worked. It’s about time for the country.”

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s rebuke, Trump now would be wise to seize on that positive impulse of six weeks ago. If there were a will from the White House, little would stand in the way of a full-blown immigration deal that would give immigrants who’ve been in the U.S. for decades a pathway to citizenship while continuing to shore up protections at the border.

Is such a welcome outcome possible? Only if Trump takes to heart the lesson on separation of powers just imparted by the high court. And Republican leaders in Congress, too, who thus far have prioritized protecting the president’s initiatives even when they are clearly opposed by a majority of lawmakers, would have to assert the powers of their co-equal branch.

It’s disheartening, albeit unsurprising, that Trump’s initial reaction to the Supreme Court has been to disparage the majority, outrageously suggesting they were doing the bidding of foreign interests, and to announce a 15% across-the-board tariff on goods made outside the U.S. under a separate law, Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. Like IEEPA, no president before has used Section 122 for such broad-based tariffs.

Section 122 allows the president theoretically to impose such duties for 150 days after which they expire without congressional authorization, but the emergency powers Trump is calling upon under this new authority don’t appear entirely clear-cut. Expect more legal challenges.

With immense uncertainty over whether tens of billions in refunds will be due to companies who’ve been paying the tariffs the Supreme Court just invalidated, a legal cloud over this new tariff gambit will do nothing to induce more businesses to invest with confidence in growth. And, of course, the hapless American consumer, who’s been paying at least a substantial chunk of these tariffs in the form of higher prices for goods, is the big loser. Consumers will see no refunds regardless of what courts decide on what happens with the already-paid duties.

Such is the confusion and chaos sown by an executive branch unwilling to negotiate with the people’s representatives, as the Constitution envisions.

Heed the wise words of your first Supreme Court appointee, President Trump, and make Congress relevant again.

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