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Emergency Over?
The Donald Is Upset With His Supreme Court
For The Love Of Tariffs
The Donald loves tariffs.
He is vocal about how he believes that the word “tariffs” is the most beautiful word in the dictionary.
He’s a lot less vocal about his love for Melania. But I digress.
Donny was the first US president to try to use the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose tariffs without congressional approval, a statute that does not actually mention the word “tariffs” anywhere.
“The International Emergency Economic Powers Act gives the president broad powers to regulate financial transactions upon declaring a national emergency. Under the law, presidents can take many economic actions “to deal with any unusual and extraordinary threat, which has its source in whole or substantial part outside the United States, to the national security, foreign policy or economy” of the country.
Presidents have used the law to impose sanctions, justify export controls and restrict some transactions and outbound investment, said Kelly Ann Shaw, a partner at the law firm Akin Gump and a former economic adviser to the Trump administration.” - New York Times
And it turns out, The Donald was wrong.
ICYMI: On Friday, the US Supreme Court announced that it would uphold a lower court’s ruling, which found The Donald’s use of tariffs under the IEEPA was unlawful.
This shouldn’t have been a big surprise, I mean, the man is a convicted felon.
Unlawful is kinda his love language.
This Isn’t An Emergency, Or Is It?
The ruling came via a 6-3 majority.
The justices highlight that the wording of the IEEPA doesn’t allow the executive branch to implement tariffs unilaterally. Again, IEEPA doesn’t mention tariffs. Maybe The Donald should have read it before he invoked it.
The Supreme Court also suggested that, for the IEEPA to support this sort of tariff action, Congress would have to grant the executive branch that authority explicitly.
As of Friday, all of the Liberation Day tariffs have been voided.
I guess the emergency is over, right?!
Wrong.
Although this ruling eliminates the majority of The Donald’s Liberation Day tariffs, it doesn’t remove or affect other tariffs issued under the IEEPA, including the fentanyl-related tariffs against Canada, Mexico, and China.
The Ragebaitor Baitin’
The Donald wasn’t exactly pleased with the predominantly republican justices’ ruling.
“The Supreme Court's ruling on tariffs is deeply disappointing and I'm ashamed of certain members of the court, absolutely ashamed for not having the courage to do what's right for our country.” - The Donald
Two of the justices, Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch, who voted to uphold the ruling against the tariffs, were appointed by The Donald himself.
“It's almost like not written by smart people.” - The Donald
Donny called the ruling “wrong” and “stupid, he even went so far as to say that the Supreme Court was swayed by “foreign interests,” but couldn’t exactly explain what or who those interests were.
Follow The Money (Right Back To The Courtroom)
Even before Friday’s Supreme Court ruling, thousands of companies sued to recover the billions of dollars already collected.
Costco Wholesale, Revlon and Goodyear Tires were among the companies seeking refunds through lawsuits at the US Court of International Trade.
More lawsuits are likely to follow now that the Supreme Court has spoken.
Revenues collected from IEEPA tariffs totalled $133 billion, accounting for about 60% of total US tariff revenue in 2025.
The Supreme Court did not explicitly rule on how or if this revenue would or should be refunded.
Did The Tariffs Do Their Job?
In its February forecast, J.D. Power noted that US-built vehicles were expected to represent more than 55% of US sales this month, up 4 percentage points, while vehicles built in other nations lost share. So, that kinda worked as Donny intended.
However, a recent analysis of new-vehicle pricing data gathered daily from franchised dealer websites in the US and sorted by country of origin found that manufacturers’ retail prices are rising fastest over the last seven months on vehicles assembled in Canada, Japan, Germany, and Mexico. As folks kinda feared, many Americans paid more for vehicles, not less.
A working paper by Harvard University professor and former International Monetary Fund economist Gita Gopinath and Brent Neiman of the University of Chicago estimates that nearly all the cost of Trump’s tariffs is borne by US importers, not foreign suppliers, as The Donald has claimed.
Although substantial revenues were collected from US tariffs in 2025, two other pieces of economic data, one released Thursday and one Friday, blew holes in The Donald’s triumphant tariff narrative.
The US trade deficit, one of the rationalizations for Liberation Day in the first place, was mostly unaffected by the tariffs. It was down 0.2% in 2025, not down 78% as the administration suggested.
The Donald also told the World Economic Forum in late January that “fourth-quarter growth is projected to be 5.6%, far greater than anybody other than myself and a few others had predicted.”
US economic growth in the fourth quarter was 1.4%, not 5.6%.
I know, math is hard.
150 More Days Of This Crap (At Least)
Donny isn’t done with his tariff plans.
He still loves tariffs.
And there are several legal avenues he can pursue to replicate the IEEPA tariffs he’s lost.
Shortly after the Supreme Court ruling, Donny imposed a new temporary universal 10% tariff on the whole effing world. This new tariff will remain in place for the next 150 days while he seeks congressional approval for a more permanent tariff solution.
Some items, such as vehicles, car parts, and critical minerals, were excluded from the new temporary tariffs.
But that was just Friday’s news.
On Saturday, Donny posted on Truth Social saying that after a “thorough, detailed, and complete review of the ridiculous, poorly written, and extraordinarily anti-American decision on Tariffs,“ he’s decided that 10% wasn’t enough and jacked that number up to 15% because, why the fuck not?
Who knows what Sunday will bring!
China’s Automotive Expansion
The Zeekr 8X
The Zeekr 8X, a large plug-in hybrid crossover from Geely, completed a 30,000 km road test across China, covering various conditions. carnewschina.com
BYD has a sexy new MPV that it built for taxi and ride-hailing businesses. carnewschina.com
Volvo is gunning for a piece of Ottawa’s Chinese electric-vehicle import quota. autonews.com
Chinese automakers want to enter the US market. cnn.com
Must-Know Musk News
Cybertruck is as Cybertruck does
Tesla’s cheaper $60,000 Cybertruck is still a Cybertruck (that very few people actually want to buy). theverge.com
Tesla won’t use the term ‘Autopilot’ in California anymore. theverge.com
Tesla celebrates its first production Cybercab. x.com
A federal judge rejected Tesla’s request to overturn a $243 million jury verdict over the 2019 crash of an Autopilot-equipped Model S, which killed a 22-year-old woman and severely injured her boyfriend. reuters.com
Tesla’s robotaxis have crashed 14 times in 9 months, a crash rate 4 times higher than that of human drivers. That works out to one crash for every 57,000 miles. electrek.co
Elon cuts off Starlink access to Russian forces, giving Ukraine an edge at the front. bbc.com
Rise Of The Machines
Agility Robotics Digit Humanoid Robot
Agility Robotics’ humanoid robot just got hired by Toyota Canada, working to help build Toyota’s newest RAV4 for the North American market. forbes.com
China is deploying AI-powered robots to manage traffic and pedestrian flow in cities. youtube.com
A Chinese robotics company recently did something most tech firms would never dare attempt. Agibot put more than 200 robots on stage for a live one-hour televised event called Agibot Night. foxnews.com
Energy
Aiden MacMillan is one smart kid
Another US seventh-grader has generated neutrons in their homegrown nuclear fusion reactor. interestingengineering.com
Canada believes its CANDU reactor technology is the best option for Poland’s second nuclear plant, Energy Minister Tim Hodgson said Tuesday during a visit to Warsaw. reuters.com
The AI data center boom is fueling Redwood Materials’ recycled EV battery energy storage business. techcrunch.com
But Wait, There’s More
Toyota’s C-HR EV
Toyota’s C-HR electric hatchback starts at $38,135 USD. theverge.com
GM Canada announced Wednesday that the company is spending $63 million to upgrade “stamping operations” at its Oshawa plant. cbc.ca
Stellantis announced the relaunch of a third shift at its Windsor Assembly Plant, involving more than 1,700 employees. cbc.ca
Workers at a VW plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, voted 96% in favour of a labour deal negotiated by the United Auto Workers, marking one of the most significant victories of UAW President Shawn Fain’s tenure. reuters.com
Polestar will launch four new EVs by 2028. mashable.com
New York Governor Kathy Hochul has pulled a proposal that would have allowed for commercial robotaxi services outside New York City, a blow to Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo as it seeks to aggressively expand its driverless fleet this year. bloomberg.com
Lucid laid off 12% of its US workforce as it seeks to boost profitability. reuters.com
A legal clash between The Donald’s administration and California over auto-pollution rules is coming to a head, with enormous financial implications for both EV start-ups and traditional automakers that depend on sales of internal combustion engine vehicles. reuters.com
Zero-emission vehicle sales in Canada continued to rebound month over month in December, with ZEV adoption reaching its highest level of 2025, weeks before the federal government announced plans to bring back its $5,000 consumer incentive. autonews.com
A coalition of health and environmental groups sued the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), challenging the rescission of a scientific finding that has served as the central basis for US action to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change. cbc.ca
When it all clicks.
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