President Donald Trump has built his second term on an audacious claim that he can reshape America’s economic and foreign policy unilaterally, with little more than a signature. Whether by slashing foreign aid allocations through so-called “pocket rescissions” or imposing sweeping tariffs on allies and adversaries alike, Trump has cast aside the traditional checks on presidential power. But a federal appeals court late last Friday sent a clear message — there are limits, even for a president determined to bend the law to his will.
In a 7-4 ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit struck down Trump’s signature “Liberation Day” tariffs, declaring that he overstepped his authority under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act. While the court allowed the tariffs to stay in place temporarily pending possible Supreme Court review, the decision represents the most serious rebuke yet to Trump’s sweeping claims of economic authority.
The parallels to Trump’s foreign aid maneuvering are striking. Just as he argued that IEEPA allowed him to treat the entire global trading system as a national emergency, Trump has insisted that the Impoundment Control Act permits him to “pocket” funds appropriated by Congress (i.e., not allow them to be spent) if he personally disagrees with how they might be used. In both cases, Trump has tried to stretch statutes beyond recognition in order to concentrate power in his own hands. And in both cases, the intended effect is the same: the president alone, not Congress, will decide how trillions of dollars in trade and aid flow around the world.
This is not what the framers of the U.S. Constitution intended. The Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the power of the purse. Congress determines how taxpayer money is spent abroad, whether on humanitarian relief in Africa, military assistance for Israel, or counternarcotics programs in Latin America. If the president can unilaterally cancel, redirect or suspend those funds, then Congress is reduced to little more than a bystander in shaping America’s foreign policy.
That is why the appeals court’s ruling matters so much. It is not just about tariffs. It is about the larger question of whether the United States will remain a system of separated powers, or whether a president can invoke a claimed “emergency” to bulldoze through every barrier. Trump’s lawyers warned that undoing his tariffs could bring “catastrophic consequences” for international agreements, even financial ruin. That kind of doomsday rhetoric is meant to intimidate courts, Congress and the public into submission. The Federal Circuit judges refused to flinch.
The ruling also exposes the fragility of Trump’s approach. By overreaching, he risks not only losing in court but unraveling the very agreements he claims to protect. Allies who negotiated under the shadow of unilateral tariffs may now question whether any deal with Trump is enforceable. Similarly, countries that watched him toy with canceling foreign aid to advance his own political and ideological goals will think twice before trusting Washington’s commitments.
Congress cannot sit back and hope the courts will always step in. Lawmakers need to reassert their constitutional role by tightening statutes like IEEPA and strengthening the Impoundment Control Act to close the loopholes Trump is so eager to exploit. If they fail, future presidents — of either party — will see Trump’s gambits not as outliers, but as precedents.
The Federal Circuit has drawn a line. Now Congress must do the same. America cannot afford to let one man’s view of “emergency” dictate the nation’s economic lifeblood or its global commitments. The balance of power is on the line and, with it, the integrity of American democracy.
