Trump fears Supreme Court may soon deal a 'seismic blow for his administration': analyst

President Donald Trump in the White House Oval Office on February 10, 2025 (Official White House photo by Daniel Torok/Flickr)

Matt Ford tells the New Republic that Trump is furious at an anti-tariff ad from the Canadian province of Ontario because he knows his tariffs are on shaky ground.

Ontario aired a commercial during the games that used a 1987 speech by then-President Ronald Reagan to oppose Trump’s tariff-blasted trade policy.

“High tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of fierce trade wars,” Reagan said in the ad. “The result is more and more tariffs, higher and higher trade barriers, and less and less competition. So, soon, because of the prices made artificially high by tariffs that subsidize inefficiency and poor management, people stop buying. Then the worst happens: Markets shrink and collapse; businesses and industries shut down; and millions of people lose their jobs.”

Trump, “who gets reliably worked up any time the television isn’t nice to him,” reacted accordingly, said Ford.

“The sole purpose of this FRAUD was Canada’s hope that the United States Supreme Court will come to their ‘rescue’ on Tariffs that they have used for years to hurt the United States,” Trump said on Truth Social. “Now the United States is able to defend itself against high and overbearing Canadian Tariffs (and those from the rest of the World as well!).”

Trump then threatened to arbitrarily increase his tariff on Canada by 10% over what they are paying now “Because of their serious misrepresentation of the facts, and hostile act.”

Ford said Trump’s reference to the Supreme Court indicates his very real fear about the court’s impending decision on his power to levy tariff from the White House.

“Oral arguments in the tariffs case are scheduled for November 5, and their outcome is clearly on the president’s mind,” said Ford. “… But the ad made no mention of the court itself, nor did it appear to be directed toward the justices.”

There’s also no guarantee that justices were watching the game when Ontario aired the ad, said Ford, adding that they would have reached judges better by simply filing a friend-of-the-court brief in the case.

“If nothing else, Trump’s mention of the Supreme Court would seem to betray a churning sense of concern that the justices might rule against him,” said Ford. “That would be a seismic blow for his administration: Trump’s domestic economic agenda is built on the premise that he can impose trillions of dollars in tariffs on imported goods to punish foreign trade practices, stimulate domestic manufacturing, and raise revenues for the federal government. Without that freewheeling power, Trump would have to rely on Congress to pass new tariffs as he cajoles, bullies, threatens, and occasionally negotiates with foreign governments over new trade deals.”

Ford said “If it is willing to do so, the Supreme Court could easily end the tariff madness — and its ever-escalating costs to ordinary Americans,” but he does “not expect the court to curb its historic reluctance to second-guess executive and legislative decisions on foreign policy.”

Read the New Republic report at this link.

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