WASHINGTON — When President Donald Trump unveiled his initial slate of punishing tariffs in April, he fashioned the announcement as a critical moment in a dawning global trade war, describing it as “the day America’s destiny was reclaimed.”

Five months later, his gambit could be in peril, after the Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to hear a case challenging the legality of Trump’s actions. Now his administration is confronting the potential loss of a powerful tool at the heart of his second-term strategy, one that has allowed the president to force concessions from companies, allies and adversaries.

The case itself concerns Trump’s novel use of a decades-old economic emergency law to impose duties around the world, despite the fact that the statute does not explicitly allow for the president

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