‘We are in a dismal fiscal situation, and it just got worse’: Budget watchdog sounds the alarm even louder after Supreme Court erases Trump’s tariffs

The Supreme Court ruled a large swath of the Trump administration’s tariffs was unconstitutional on Friday. It might make the average American consumer happy, but the decision could amount to trillions of dollars in lost government revenue over the next decade, and eventually come back to haunt the country’s fiscal stability.

As evidence mounted that tariffs were taking a toll on American shoppers and companies, the Supreme Court justices ruled 6–3 that Trump had exceeded his authority when he installed sweeping “emergency” tariffs on a number of trade partners. The decision was cheered by business coalitions, and markets surged on the news.

One group that wasn’t so happy was the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), a nonpartisan organization focusing on fiscal sustainability. While many both in the U.S. and abroad opposed Trump’s signature trade policy, his tariff regime had already brought in billions in government revenue, with trillions more baked into the fiscal accounting for the rest...