Several Maryland officials demanded that President Donald Trump issue a $4 billion tariff reimbursement after the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s global tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).
In a joint letter addressed to Trump from Gov. Wes Moore (D-MD), Maryland Comptroller Brooke E. Lierman, and Maryland State Treasurer Dereck E. Davis, Maryland was described as being a “state built on trade, innovation, and hard work.”
The letter also claimed that data from the U.S. Joint Economic Committee estimated that “the Trump Administration’s tariff actions cost American consumers approximately $1,744 per household.” The letter added that “accounting for Maryland’s approximately 2.4 million households,” it is estimated that businesses and consumers in the state “bore an estimated $4 billion in direct and indirect tariff-related costs.”
“When your Administration imposed these tariffs, Maryland businesses were forced to respond,” Moore and the other officials said. “Companies that important good paid directly at the border; those that rely on imported materials, equipment, and components absorbed higher input costs. In both cases, those costs were passed along to consumers, raising prices for working families already confronting a difficult cost of living.”
The letter continued:
The financial toll on our state has been significant. Based on data from the U.S. Joint Economic Committee, which estimates that the Trump Administration’s tariff actions cost American consumers approximately $1,744 per household, and accounting for Maryland’s approximately 2.4 million households, our offices estimate that Maryland businesses and consumers bore an estimated $4 billion in direct and indirect tariff-related costs during the period these unconstitutional measures were in effect.
Moore and the other officials added that the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling made it clear that the “tariffs were imposed without constitutional authority.”
“The power to levy taxes and tariffs belongs to Congress — not the Executive Branch,” the letter adds. “That foundational principle was violated when your Administration unilaterally imposed sweeping global tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.”
Moore and the other officials added that they were “formally” requesting that the Trump administration “take immediate steps to refund to the State of Maryland the tariff revenues unlawfully collected” from businesses and consumers.
Breitbart News’s John Carney reported at the time that Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority that Trump “exceeded his authority by invoking emergency powers to impose duties on virtually every country”:
The ruling is the first time the high court has definitively struck down one of Trump’s second-term policies. In other areas, the court has granted Trump broad latitude to deploy executive power, but a majority of justices said he went too far in enacting his most sweeping tariffs without clear authorizations from Congress.
Trump imposed the tariffs in two waves. In February 2025, he placed 25 percent duties on most Canadian and Mexican imports and 10 percent on Chinese goods, citing fentanyl trafficking. Then in April, on what he dubbed “Liberation Day,” he imposed a general 10 percent tariff on imports from nearly all countries and steeper rates on nations the administration deemed trade violators.
Trump declared overdose deaths from fentanyl and persistent annual trade deficits to be national emergencies that justified the new trade policy under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a 1977 law Congress passed to give presidents tools for responding to foreign crises.
Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was one of the justices that dissented, hinted there may be a “path forward for future tariffs.”:
Although I firmly disagree with the Court’s holding today, the decision might not substantially constrain a President’s ability to order tariffs going forward. That is because numerous other federal statutes authorize the President to impose tariffs and might justify most (if not all) of the tariffs at issue in this case—albeit perhaps with a few additional procedural steps that IEEPA, as an emergency statute, does not require. Those statutes include, for example, the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 (Section 232); the Trade Act of 1974 (Sections 122, 201, and 301); and the Tariff Act of 1930 (Section 338). In essence, the Court today concludes that the President checked the wrong statutory box by relying on IEEPA rather than another statute to impose these tariffs.
Trump later revealed that he had signed a Proclamation imposing “a Global” 10 percent on all countries. A White House fact sheet explained that Trump was “invoking his authority under section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974.”
In a post on Truth Social from Trump on Friday, he expressed that the Supreme Court’s recent decision on tariffs “could allow for Hundreds of Billions of Dollars to be returned to Countries and Companies” that have been ripping the United States off.
