An Originalist Reading of Trump’s IEEPA Tariffs

This paper examines how Trump v. V.O.S. Selections may force the Supreme Court’s conservative majority to confront the limits of its own textualism. President Trump’s sweeping tariffs, imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), stretch a statute meant to restrict emergency powers into a tool for economic nationalism. At stake is whether the Court will apply its own doctrines—the nondelegation and major questions doctrines—consistently, or bend them to politics. Tracing the IEEPA’s Cold War origins, its statutory language, and the constitutional allocation of tariff power to Congress, this paper reveals how Trump’s reading of the law represents not originalism, but opportunism. If “history, not policy, is the proper guide,” as Justice Kavanaugh insists, the Court must decide whether that principle binds everyone—or only its opponents.