When The Supreme Court Tries To Give Trump an Off-ramp - 2/23/26

The US Supreme Court decision to strike down the tariffs that have been the centerpiece of Donald Trump’s economic and foreign policy agenda last Friday shook the world. But because of Trump’s own intransigence, their effect on the midterm elections here at home may be much more negligible. 
 
Trump’s hyper-aggressive use of tariffs since returning to office has roiled the international landscape. Countries across the world have scrambled to avoid the most onerous trade burdens that he has threatened, and many of our long-time allies have reassessed their relationship with the United States. The European Union, Canada, and Latin America and Pacific Rim allies that have previously relied on the US as the key to their international economic engagement have now begun forging new agreements with each other without any participation from Americans. Others have announced massive financial investments in the United States as a way of avoiding unbearably high costs for exporting their products here.
 
The US political environment has been even more dramatically upended. The American people are unhappy about the continued high price of goods, and they blame Trump’s tariffs in overwhelming numbers. Even while traditional economic indicators show the economy continuing to demonstrate strength (although last week’s estimates on the fourth quarter of 2025’s Gross National Product sends an unsettling warning sign), voters are still exhibiting great concern over their own economic prospects and those of the country as well. Trump was elected because of broad dissatisfaction with his predecessor’s inability to keep inflation under control, but he is now in danger of facing similar wrath from impatient and angry Americans.
 
Trump himself is not on the ballot this November, of course, but he recognizes the problems that a Democratic majority in either chamber of Congress would cause him. He has repeatedly referenced the near-certainty of a Democratic-controlled House pursuing a third impeachment against him, and he knows that while a hostile Senate is less likely, a change there would bring his assembly line of judicial appointments to a halt. So he has pulled out all the stops to try to protect the GOP majority, including an unprecedented mid-decade redistricting to try to artificially boost the number of Republican House seats.

While Trump has continued to brag about what he sees as the positive effect of his tariffs, economic and political reality has forced him to back down on a number of these fees to try to ease the financial strain on American consumers. So it seemed plausible that when the Court announced last Friday that his unilateral imposition of tariffs was unconstitutional, it might have provided him with a convenient excuse to shift course. Even a grudging acceptance of the justices’ decision would have calmed markets, encouraged manufacturers and importers, and provided reassurance to economically stressed Americans.
 
But the president’s fury led him to impose a range of new tariffs to replace the old ones, thereby almost ensuring that the current voter attitudes will remain in place through November. Given that polls show a decided Democratic motivational advantage and a growing likelihood of Republicans losing their House majority in November, a believable pretext to edge away from the tariffs that have so unsettled many voters would seem to have been an effective strategic adjustment to both reassure consumers and redirect their attention to the stronger aspects of the nation’s economy. But he chose to charge forward instead.
 
An even greater challenge for Trump and his party is that the new tariffs he has imposed are limited to 150 days before they must be approved by Congress to remain in place. That means that embattled GOP incumbents will be forced to vote on these tariffs barely three months before the midterm elections. A handful of Republican House members voted against Trump earlier this month on a pair of trade bills. It’s worth assuming that those numbers will significantly grow when similar votes take place so close to Election Day. The congressional debate will also serve as a high-profile reminder to voters both that the tariffs are in place and that prices are still too high. This is not the issue that Republican candidates want their constituents to be thinking about as the fall campaign begins. But Trump’s action all but ensures that this will be the defining issue on Election Day. 
 
While it was certainly not intentional, the justices threw Trump a political lifeline. He not only disdained it, he complained about it. The result is that the Democrats’ prospects in November may now be even better.