U.S. President Donald Trump looks on as he departs the White House en route to Norfolk, Virginia to attend the 250th Anniversary of the Navy celebration, from the South Lawn at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., October 5, 2025. REUTERS/Aaron Schwartz

This Wednesday, November 5, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in challenges to President Donald Trump's ability to unilaterally impose steep new tariffs under the Emergency Powers Act of 1977

Trump's critics are arguing that according to the U.S. Constitution, he needs the input of Congress to impose these tariffs and cannot act unilaterally. But Trump and members of his administration claim that his executive powers give him the right to determine trade policy.

It remains to be seen how the High Court will ultimately rule in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, but according to Politico reporters Megan Messerly, Doug Palmer, Daniel Desrochers and Ari Hawkins, the Trump Administration has a "Plan B" in case the justices do not rule in their favor.

"Aides have spent weeks strategizing how to reconstitute the president's global tariff regime if the Court rules that he exceeded his authority," the Politico journalists explain in an article published on November 4. "They're ready to fall back on a patchwork of other trade statutes to keep pressure on U.S. trading partners and preserve billions in tariff revenue, according to six current and former White House officials and others familiar with the administration's thinking, some of whom were granted anonymity to share details of private conversations…. Behind the scenes, trade and legal advisers have modeled what a partial loss might look like — where the Court upholds the use of the 1977 law in some circumstances but not others — and what other legal means might be available to achieve similar ends."

The reporters add, "However, those alternatives are slower, narrower and, in some cases, similarly vulnerable to legal challenge, leaving even White House allies to acknowledge the administration's tariff strategy is on shakier ground than it is willing to publicly concede."

Messerly, Palmer, Desrochers and Hawkins note that "even a partial loss" at the High Court "would make it much harder for the president to use tariffs as an all-purpose tool for extracting concessions on a number of issues, from muscling foreign companies to make investments in the U.S. to pressuring countries into reaching peace agreements."

A supporter of Trump's trade policies, interviewed on condition of anonymity, believes there is a strong policy that SCOTUS — where GOP-appointed justices have a hard-right 6-3 supermajority — will rule in the president's favor.

That source told Politico, "There's no other legal authority that will work as quickly or give the president the flexibility he wanted. They seem very confident that they're going to win. I don't see why they're confident at all. Two different courts that have ruled extremely harshly on this."

Read the full Politico article at this link.