The Supreme Court will hear the challenge over President Trump’s tariffs the first week of November, the court announced Thursday.
The two trade cases, which have been consolidated, will be argued before the justices Nov. 5, with a decision not expected right away.
An educational toy company and an international wine company have challenged Mr. Trump’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose tariffs.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, in a 7-4 ruling on Aug. 29, said it was unlawful for the president to invoke the federal law to set nation-by-nation tariffs.
The circuit court reasoned the president stretched the law too broadly and that Congress generally has authority over tariffs.
That’s exactly what the challengers have argued — that it is up to Congress, not Mr. Trump, to impose tariffs.
The administration quickly appealed.
U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer, representing the Trump administration, argued that the federal appeals court decision “casts a pall of uncertainty upon ongoing foreign negotiations that the president has been pursuing through tariffs over the past five months, jeopardizing both already negotiated framework deals and ongoing negotiations.”
The president’s petition argues that the IEEPA gives the president authority to impose the tariffs due to national security issues — like the flow of fentanyl, the trade deficit with other countries, and conflicts overseas.
Tariffs have brought in more than $150 billion in tax revenue through U.S. customs this year compared with roughly $60 billion around the same time last year.
Mr. Trump said tariffs could ostensibly be used as the chief revenue source instead of the income tax, as they were in the late 1800s.
• Stephen Dinan contributed to this story.
