Trump’s Hidden Plan Behind Tariffs and Why He Can’t Let SCOTUS Stop It

The U.S. Supreme Court just threw a monkey wrench into the broader global economic plan that President Trump was working to realize. In a split decision, the Supreme Court ruled that President Trump did not have the legal authority to implement the tariffs, at least in the way that he had done it. However, if different countries and different foreign businesses were breathing a sigh of relief, it was very short-lived. That's because within about an hour, Trump announced that he's going to be using a different law to implement a new set of tariffs, which, at least for some countries, are actually higher than the previous tariffs, which were ruled to be unconstitutional. Let me break down for you the details of the case, as well as the grand master plan behind the tariffs that most other media have absolutely missed. Up on your screen is a paper that's written by economist Stephen Moran. This is a 40-page analysis titled A User's Guide to Restructuring the Global Trading System, and it was published in November of 2024, immediately after the 2024 presidential election. And in it, Mr. Moran develops a roadmap on how to basically restructure the entire global trading system. The crux of his plan is to bring manufacturing back to America, as well as to eliminate the U.S. national debt. However, the premise of the paper is that these two things cannot happen with a strong U.S. dollar. If the dollar is too strong internationally, the manufacturing will not return. It's just too expensive to manufacture here in America and then to export globally if the U.S. dollar is too strong. So his goal, the plan that he aims to achieve, is to weaken the U.S. dollar internationally, making U.S. exports that much more attractive. But he admits that's very hard to do. The U.S. dollar, it's perpetually strong. It's structurally strong because it's the reserve currency of the whole world. So he states that it's been borderline impossible to devalue the dollar because there's always a demand out there for the dollar. And that's on top of the fact that most other countries, they essentially manipulate their currencies to keep their currencies weak so that their exports are much more attractive by comparison. China is obviously the biggest example of this. However, the framework that he lays out in his paper is to basically slap tariffs on every country in the world. This, the paper surmises, will do two things. First, it'll devalue the U.S. dollar. And then also, it'll collect a huge amount of tariff revenue, which could theoretically offset taxes, meaning the external revenue service could replace the internal revenue service. And then in the process, as the U.S. dollar continually becomes weaker and weaker, manufacturing will naturally return to America. And as the paper is called, the global trading system will be restructured. Now, the reason that I bring this paper up is because it was not just a theoretical exercise written by some economist nobody's ever heard of. That's because Stephen Moran, the economist who wrote this paper, he was appointed by Trump to be the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. Basically, Trump appointed him even before he entered office again to be his head economic adviser. And literally right before he was appointed, Mr. Moran published the exact roadmap that Trump would later follow. And so seen in this light, all of the surface level reasons for all the different tariffs, they become just a means to an end, a justification for the tariffs and the tariffs with a real goal, with the ultimate real goal being to devalue the U.S. dollar. And so slapping tariffs on Canada over fentanyl that was coming over their border, slapping tariffs on those uninhabited islands near Antarctica where literally only penguins live, and of course, slapping broad tariffs on almost every single country in the world. These actions become a lot more clear when understood within the context of the plan that was laid out by Mr. Moran in the economic paper that he published immediately after Trump won the presidential election. The one that was literally titled a user's guide to restructuring the global trading system. And so with that master plan as the general backdrop, let's quickly rewatch President Trump on April 2nd of last year declaring Liberation Day, that the U.S. is being liberated from unfair trade agreements with countries around the world. Take a listen. This is one of the most important days in my opinion, American history. It's our declaration of economic independence. My fellow Americans, this is Liberation Day, April 2nd, 2025, will forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn, the day America's destiny was reclaimed, and the day that we began to make America wealthy again. On that same day that he gave that speech, President Trump also signed into effect a very consequential executive order. It was Executive Order 14257. That order declared a national emergency over the U.S. trade deficit, and it invoked presidential authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to basically impose sweeping tariffs on most foreign imports. Immediately, almost every country was hit with a baseline 10% tariff, followed up by country-specific tariffs, which went all the way up to 50%. All right, just to pause here for a super quick moment, I'd like to introduce today's sponsor, Cowboy Colustrum. 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The links will be down in the description box below. Now, since then, most countries have agreed to come to the table and to work out some sort of a trade deal, but because of the baseline tariffs, the amount of money, the sheer amount of money that the U.S. Treasury has been taking in is truly astounding. Looking at this graph right here from the Federal Reserve, you can just see the amount last year, how it compares to every single year before that. For the full calendar year 2025, the U.S. collected $287 billion in customs duties, taxes and fees. Among other things, this also caused our trade deficit as a country to fall significantly. However, the businesses that were affected by these tariffs, they understandably were not happy with the situation, and many lawsuits began to get filed against the Trump administration. Several of them, they wound up getting consolidated, and eventually the U.S. Supreme Court, they decided to take up the case. Eventually, in November of last year, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments from both sides in the case, and here was the basic premise of the issue in question. The Supreme Court heard arguments over the legality of Trump's global tariff agenda imposed earlier this year. Justices probed Trump's use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which allows presidents to regulate imports in response to emergencies. Congress, through Article 1 of the Constitution, has the authority to impose tariffs. Some justices seemed skeptical of Trump's use of that law to impose tariffs, while others were more difficult to read, casting uncertainty over the eventual ruling and what it will mean for the president's tariff agenda. And skeptical they were, given the fact that late last week, the U.S. Supreme Court wound up finally ruling in the case against the tariffs. In a 6-3 split decision, you had Justices John Roberts, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, Alina Kagan, Katonji Brown-Jackson, as well as Sonia Sotomayor all ruling against the Trump administration. Now, the majority opinion was actually delivered orally by Chief Justice John Roberts, and he made two basic key points. The first one is that the U.S. Constitution vests the powers to tax exclusively into the And secondly, under what's known as the Supreme Court's Major Questions Doctrine, any expansive use of tariffs must have clear and explicit authorization from Congress vesting the power into the executive branch. And the majority on the U.S. Supreme Court, they said that Trump's tariffs, they did not fit with the language of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act as it was written. And so the basic crux of it is that since Congress did not pass Trump's tariffs in the form of an actual vote, they are, the tariffs, the majority concluded, unconstitutional. If I can boil it down, the crux of their argument was that the way that Trump was implementing that particular law, it was so far reaching that it basically usurped the power to tax away from Congress. And in so doing, it basically reshaped the very structure of the U.S. government when you compare it to what the U.S. Constitution lays out, which is that, again, Congress has the sole exclusive authority to levy taxes. However, it's worth mentioning that that decision was not unanimous. You had Justices Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, as well as Sam Alito, all dissenting and writing their own dissenting opinions. Here was part of what Clarence Thomas wrote in his dissenting opinion. Quote, Congress authorized the president to regulate importation. Throughout American history, the authority to regulate importation has been understood to include the authority to impose duties on imports. The meaning of that phrase was beyond doubt by the time that Congress enacted the statute shortly after President Nixon's highly publicized duties on imports were upheld based on identical language. The statute that President Trump relied on therefore authorized him to impose the duties on imports at issue in these cases. Going further, you had Justice Brett Kavanaugh add the following in his dissenting opinion. Quote, acting pursuant to his statutory authority to regulate importation under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEPA, the president has imposed tariffs on imports of foreign goods from various countries. The tariffs have generated vigorous policy debates. Those policy debates are not for the federal judiciary to resolve. Rather, the judiciary's more limited role is to neutrally interpret and apply the law. The sole legal question here is whether, under IEPA, tariffs are a means to regulate importation. Statutory text, history, and precedent demonstrate that the answer is clearly yes. Like quotas and embargoes, tariffs are a traditional and common tool to regulate importation. And so the basic crux of the dissenting argument is that the U.S. president has the power to regulate importation, and one of the tools for regulating importation is tariffs. And interestingly, in his dissent later, Justice Brett Kavanaugh goes on to outline a different legal route, basically a different set of laws that Trump could invoke in order to implement the very same tariffs at issue. And funny enough, that is exactly what Trump did. Almost immediately after this U.S. Supreme Court ruling was made public, Trump gave a press conference wherein he said the following. But now I'm going to go in a different direction. Probably the direction that I should have gone the first time, but I read the language. I'm very good at reading language, and it read our way 100 percent. But now I'll go the way I could have gone originally, which is even stronger than our original choice. As Justice Kavanaugh, whose stock has gone so up, you have to see, I'm so proud of him, wrote in his dissent, 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. So think of that. The decision might not substantially constrain. And it doesn't. He's right. In fact, I can charge much more than I was charging. Therefore, effective immediately, all national security tariffs under Section 232 and existing Section 301 tariffs, they're existing, they're there, remain in place, fully in place, and in full force and effect. Today, I will sign an order to impose a 10 percent global tariff under Section 122. Over and above are normal tariffs already being charged. So basically, after the ruling, Trump doubled down on the tariffs using a different legal authority. And he sprinkled an additional 10 percent on top. And it gets better because the very next day, Trump issued a statement on Truth Social, raising this new global tariff to 15 percent, which is the maximum allowed under the new law that he's using. Here's part of a statement, quote, based on a thorough, detailed and complete review of the ridiculous, poorly written and extraordinarily anti-American decision on tariffs issued yesterday. After many months of contemplation by the United States Supreme Court, please let this statement serve to represent that I, as president of the United States of America, will be effective immediately, raising the 10 percent worldwide tariff on countries, many of which have been ripping the U.S. off for decades without retribution until I came along to the fully allowed and legally tested 15 percent level. With this new policy taking effect immediately, President Trump further signaled, though, that he would press ahead with this trade war despite the major legal setback. Quote, during the next short number of months, the Trump administration will determine and issue the new and legally permissible tariffs, which will continue our extraordinarily successful process of making America great again, greater than ever before. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Now, what Trump is alluding to here has to do with the new law that he's invoking. Trump is applying this new baseline tariff under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, which allows the U.S. president to impose tariffs for 150 days without needing congressional approval. So that's basically five months that these tariffs can stay in place from now until, I guess, the end of July. Afterwards, the Trump administration has made indications that they will use other legal authorities like Section 301 of that very same Trade Act to impose tariffs on individual countries based on the specifics of those countries' trade practices. But those additional tariffs will take time to prepare. And so as of right now, at least temporarily, exports from all countries will face a 15% tariff rate regardless of trade practices and regardless of the concessions that those countries previously made in negotiations, which is funny because I'm sure some countries and some companies were celebrating the U.S. Supreme Court decision. But in actuality, some countries are actually getting hit with a higher tariff than they previously had. Now, the bigger issue at play, though, is, of course, the question of the money that will have to be returned. As I mentioned at the top of the episode, the tariffs that have been collected thus far by the Treasury Department ever since Liberation Day amount to something close to $300 billion, and $133 billion of which is from the IEPA tariffs, which were overturned. And so now that money will have to be sent back. However, the individuals in charge of the Treasury Department, they don't quite know how that's going to happen. Quote, the White House on Sunday signaled it is waiting for the courts to issue guidance on whether tariff-related refunds are to be sent out. In an interview on Sunday with ABC News, U.S. Trade Representative Jameson Greer was asked about the Trump administration's plans. He said, well, we need the court to tell us what to do. They've created a situation where they struck down the tariffs and gave zero guidance on this. Historically, as a trade attorney, in my experience, courts will normally give you some instruction on what to do when the Court of International Trade, which is a district-level U.S. court, my expectation is that they'll have to step in and give some direction on how they want that to be done, if at all, whether plaintiffs had to have made a claim or not. We just need to have guidance from the court. Likewise, you had Mr. Scott Besant, the Secretary of the Treasury. He told CNN the following after the Supreme Court decision. Supreme Court didn't even address that. The Supreme Court remanded it down to a lower court. And, you know, we will follow what they say, but that could be weeks or months when we hear them. So the Supreme Court did not address refunds. It is not up to the administration. It is up to the lower court. Let's just be clear on that. And so there you have it. If you'd like to go through anything we discussed in today's episode in greater detail, I'll throw it all down into the description box below, including that 40-page user's guide to restructuring the global economic system. It's a great read, by the way. Very short. A little bit dense, but it's accessible. And it will really give you a broader picture of what Trump is trying to do with these tariffs. Also at issue is the question of those fat $2,000 tariff refund checks that I know we've all been waiting on. I guess right now they're more in limbo than before. Thus far, no statements have been made. As soon as any statements do come out, I will let you know regarding those checks. I'm sure you and myself have all been anxiously awaiting any updates on them. So I'll let you know as soon as those come out. And then lastly, if you haven't already, smash these like and subscribe buttons so that this video can reach ever more people via the algorithm. And by smashing that subscribe button, you'll get notified of any new videos as we publish them. And then until next time, I'm your host, Roman from The Epoch Times. Stay informed. Most importantly, stay free.