Supreme Court take up Trump's tariffs in high-impact case: Live updates

WASHINGTON − In its most high-impact case of the term, the Supreme Court is debating the legality of the tariffs President Donald Trump has used to raise revenue, spur manufacturing and exert political pressure on other countries.

The tariffs, the centerpiece of Trump's economic and foreign policy agendas, are the first major test of his aggressive assertion of presidential powers to reach the high court.

Lower courts found that Trump overstepped when he invoked a 1977 law meant for emergencies to impose tariffs on imports from most countries.

But legal experts are closely divided about how the Supreme Court may rule.

The court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, has favored giving the president broad executive authority, especially in areas that touch on national security or foreign affairs. But the court has also been receptive to conservative arguments that Congress can’t give too much of its power to the executive branch. And when it does give substantial decision-making authority, it must do so clearly. That was the basis for the court’s rejection of some of President Joe Biden’s policies, which he justified because of “emergencies.”

Whichever way the justices rule, their decision will affect Trump’s agenda, the economy, the federal budget, presidential power and businesses and households that are bearing the brunt of the tariffs.

Follow along as the high court considers the case.

Who is John Sauer?

John Sauer is the U.S. solicitor general. His role is to supervise and run U.S. government litigation at the Supreme Court. He was appointed by President Donald Trump in 2025.

Sauer previously represented Trump personally at the U.S. Supreme Court in 2024, when Trump was arguing that he was protected from federal criminal charges alleging he illegally conspired to overturn the 2020 election. Sauer argued that Trump enjoyed significant immunity from prosecution as a former president.

Sauer also served as Missouri's solicitor general from 2017 to 2023.

– Aysha Bagchi

When is a decision expected?

While the Supreme Court can take months to decide its biggest cases, the justices may try to rule faster on the tariffs. That’s in part because the longer they’re in place, the more money the government will collect that it may have to refund.

The justices are also aware that the uncertainty about the tariffs is making it hard for affected businesses to plan.

– Maureen Groppe

Kavanaugh agrees Trump may not need powers at issue

Oregon Solicitor General Benjamin Gutman had an answer that may have helped satisfy Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s concerns about restricting a president’s ability to respond to an emergency.

Kavanaugh had noted that the tariffs President Trump has imposed on India are aimed at trying to settle the war between Russia and Ukraine. If the court rules against the tariffs, that tool is “out the window,” he said.

Gutman noted that there are laws other than the one Trump is relying on that do allow presidents to impose tariffs in specific circumstances.

“That’s a good point,” Kavanaugh replied.

– Maureen Groppe

Sotomayor questions whether Congress granted president broad tariff power

Justice Sonia Sotomayor questioned whether Congress would have granted a president such wide-ranging power as tariffs without explicitly saying so in the disputed statute.

She noted that Trump threatened a 10% tariff on Canada for running an ad during the World Series and a 40% tariff on Brazil because it prosecuted a former president.

“The point is those may be good policies, but does a statute that gives without limit the power to a president to impose this kind of tax – does it require more than the word regulate?” Sotomayor asked.

“Exactly,” replied Oregon Solicitor General Benjamin Gutman, who represented states opposed to Trump’s tariffs.

– Bart Jansen

Top Oregon government lawyer says Trump isn't helped by 19th-century history

Benjamin Gutman, Oregon's solicitor general, is now arguing on behalf of several states that have challenged the president's tariffs. He opened his portion of the arguments by trying to distinguish some 19th-century Supreme Court decisions from the case the court is considering now.

Gutman said those old decisions dealt with the president's power to impose tariffs in territories the military was occupying during wartime, and didn't include the power to impose tariffs on imports coming into the U.S.

"I don't think any of that provides authority for this general notion that there is a background principle that the president, even in wartime, has an Article II authority to impose tariffs," Gutman said. Article II is the part of the Constitution that outlines the powers of the president.

– Aysha Bagchi

Tariffs 'not a donut hole" they're 'a different kind of pastry’

Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked the critics of tariffs how Congress provided the president with the power to shut down all trade with every other country or set severe quotas on imports, but not allow him to impose a 1% tariff on imports.

“That leaves, as the government said in its briefs, an odd donut hole in the statute,” Kavanaugh said. “That doesn’t seem – but I want to get your answer – to have a lot of common sense behind it.”

Oregon Solicitor General Benjamin Gutman said tariffs are a fundamentally different power than embargoes.

“It’s not a donut hole, it’s a different kind of pastry,” Gutman said to laughter in the courtroom, which Kavanaugh complimented as “a good one.”

– Bart Jansen

‘Zilch’: Tariff opponent says Congress didn’t envision tariffs while debating bill

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson asked whether anything in the legislative history of the disputed 1977 statute provided for tariffs.

Neal Katyal, a lawyer representing small businesses fighting the tariffs, said there is one brief mention of tariffs in the public record, which, “if I blinked, I would miss it.”

But Katyal said that Congress passed the bill by voice vote, which wouldn’t have happened if it granted the president the power to impose tariffs, one of the most contentious debates in the country’s history.

“You’re saying there’s nothing in the legislative history?” Jackson asked.

“Zilch,” Katyal said.

– Bart Jansen

Barrett asks about reimbursements for businesses if the tariffs are illegal

Justice Amy Coney Barrett asked how difficult it would be for the government to refund the tens of billions of dollars in tariffs already collected if the court ruled they were illegal.

“Would reimbursement be a complete mess?” Barrett asked the lawyer for the businesses challenging the tariffs.

Neal Katyal said the government has said it would reimburse the specific businesses he’s representing. Other importers would have to rely on complicated rules set in trade laws to get refunds.

“So, a mess,” Barrett said.

Katyal responded that even if reimbursements would be difficult, that’s not a reason for the court to side with the administration.

And the court can also rule that businesses can’t get reimbursed, even if the justices strike down the tariffs, he said.

– Maureen Groppe

'Torn up the entire tariff architecture': lawyer for businesses says Trump tariffs are different

Neal Katyal, who is arguing on behalf of businesses challenging the Trump tariffs, pushed back on a question from Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a Trump appointee, that suggested Congress may have previously approved of Nixon using emergency powers to impose temporary 10% tariffs – and by extension, empowered Trump to impose his current tariffs.

"This president has torn up the entire tariff architecture," Katyal said. As an example, he said that Trump has imposed a 39% tariff on an ally, Switzerland, despite a U.S. trade surplus with the country.

"That is just not something that any president has ever had the power to do in our history," Katyal said.

– Aysha Bagchi

Kavanaugh suggests he's not sure yet how he would rule on Trump tariffs

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a Trump appointee, suggested that he hasn't made up his mind about the case. He said he's trying to figure out whether Congress was granting presidents the power to impose these types of tariffs when it passed a law in 1977 giving the president power to "regulate importation."

Congress knew at that time that President Richard Nixon, in 1971, had invoked an earlier, similar law to impose temporary 10% tariffs. If Congress disagreed with that move from Nixon, Kavanaugh said, it could have made it clear in the 1977 law that it wasn't providing that kind of power.

"Why didn't they say regulate, but not tariffs?" Kavanaugh asked.

– Aysha Bagchi

Alito asks whether law at issue was intended to be open-ended

Justice Samuel Alito asked the lawyer representing the small businesses why the federal law at issue needed to more specifically lay out a president’s powers. Aren’t laws intended to address emergency provisions by nature open-ended, Alito asked.

Lawyer Neal Katyal disagreed. He said other emergency statutes include extremely serious limits on a president’s authority.

– Maureen Groppe

Alito asks if Congress must authorize tariffs if they aren’t collected

Justice Samuel Alito asked if Congress would need to authorize tariffs if a president wielded them as just a threat.

Alito proposed that a president could threaten a tariff to take effect in 90 days to discourage another country from declaring war and then cancel the tariff.

“Would that be a revenue-raising tariff?” Alito asked.

Neal Katyal, a lawyer representing small businesses, said it was. He said tariffs would have to be authorized by Congress even if they weren’t collected.

“Taxation is special and different,” Katyal said. “It is the most powerful thing the government does.”

– Bart Jansen

Alito compares tariffs to national park fees

Justice Samuel Alito focused on how the tariffs raise money by asking whether a national park could charge entry fees to “regulate” admission, as Trump has imposed tariffs to regulate imports.

Neal Katyal, a lawyer for small businesses fighting the tariffs, said if the fees raised revenue, Congress would have to authorize it and not have parks impose fees as part of regulating entries.

“I do dispute that, absolutely,” Katyal said.

– Bart Jansen

Roberts pushes on the foreign policy role of tariffs

Chief Justice John Roberts, who had been tough on the Justice Department, started his questioning of the DOJ's opposing lawyers by probing one of their weakest points: the foreign policy role of tariffs.

Roberts said the small businesses challenging the tariffs can’t dismiss the fact that tariffs directly implicate a president’s foreign affairs powers.

Neal Katyal, the lawyer representing small businesses, agreed that tariffs have foreign policy implications. But the founding fathers still made tariffs the exclusive power of Congress, he said.

– Maureen Groppe

What a SCOTUS ruling against Trump's tariffs could mean for Americans

Theoretically, if the Supreme Court strikes down Trump's tariffs, businesses may expect refunds and consumers may expect some potential price decreases in the long run. Both should expect more uncertainty.

The Supreme Court agreed to hear Trump’s appeal of lower court rulings that he overreached when he invoked a 1977 law to impose tariffs on imports from most countries. If the court sides against him, many – but not all – of the tariffs imposed during 2025 could be affected.

Trump has said the United States will face an "economic disaster" unless the tariffs remain in place and called the case a matter of "LIFE OR DEATH" for the country in a post on Truth Social the night before oral arguments began.

– Rachel Barber

Small-business lawyer calls Trump argument ‘an open-ended power to junk the tariff laws’

Neal Katyal, a lawyer representing small businesses fighting the tariffs, said it was “simply implausible” that Congress handed the president the power to overhaul the entire tariff regime and the country’s economy multiple times on his own.

“As Justices Gorsuch and Barrett just said, this is a one-way ratchet,” Katyal said. “We will never get this power back if the government wins this case.”

Katyal said if Trump wins, a future president could declare another emergency, such as climate change, and set different tariffs.

“This is an open-ended power to junk the tariff laws and is certainly not conveyed by the word regulate,” Katyal said.

– Bart Jansen

Barrett: It will be hard for Congress to get tariffing power back

Addressing the balance of power issue at the heart of the case, Justice Amy Coney Barrett wondered what recourse lawmakers would have if they didn’t want to cede so much tariffing power to presidents under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

Congress would need a veto-proof majority to change the law, she said, because a president would try to kill it.

“Let’s say that we adopt your interpretation of the statute,” Barrett said. “If Congress said, `Whoa, we don’t like that. That gives a president too much authority under IEEPA,’ it’s going to have a very hard time pulling that tariff power out of IEEPA, correct?”

– Maureen Groppe

'It's a one-way ratchet': Conservative Justice Gorsuch suggests Trump tariffs are overreach

Justice Neil Gorsuch, a Donald Trump appointee, appeared to voice sharp criticism of the administration's arguments about emergency powers.

Gorsuch noted that, because of the president's power to veto congressional legislation, Congress doesn't have much power to rein in the president with new legislation, once Congress has given more power to the president. (Congress needs a two-thirds vote to override a presidential veto.)

That, Gorsuch suggested, is a reason to be skeptical of the administration's position that Congress has ceded over to the executive branch the type of broad emergency powers the president is now invoking.

"What happens when the president simply vetoes legislation to try to take these powers back?" Gorsuch asked. "Congress, as a practical matter in the real world, it can never get that power back."

"It's a one-way ratchet toward the gradual but continual accretion of power in the executive branch and away from the people's elected representatives," Gorsuch added.

"I disagree with that," Trump administration lawyer John Sauer adamantly responded. He said there was a recent example of Congress terminating the COVID-19 emergency.

Gorsuch responded that the president had agreed to that move from Congress.

"It takes a super-majority, a veto-proof majority, to get it back," Gorsuch said.

– Aysha Bagchi

Gorsuch asks whether Congress could surrender power to tax, declare war

Justice Neil Gorsuch asked Sauer, if the president's authority to conduct foreign affairs is unreviewable and he arguably has the power to impose tariffs, whether Congress could abdicate its power to declare war.

“You say that we shouldn’t be so concerned about the area of foreign affairs because of the president’s inherent powers,” Gorsuch said. “What would prevent Congress from abdicating all responsibility to regulate foreign commerce – or, for that matter, declare war – to the president?”

Sauer said his broad view of executive power doesn’t go that far.

“We don’t assert that here,” Sauer said. “We don’t contend he could do that.”

Sauer had argued that the courts should give deference and set limited restrictions on the president governing foreign affairs. But Gorsuch said he had weakened his position by acknowledging the president couldn’t claim the power to declare war.

“You’ve backed off that position,” Gorsuch said with a chuckle.

“Maybe that’s fair to say,” Sauer replied to laughter in the court. “That would really be an abdication rather than a delegation.”

– Bart Jansen

Kavanaugh asks why Trump is the first president to use IEEPA to impose tariffs

Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked the Justice Department why no other president had tried to use the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose tariffs.

Solicitor General John Sauer said that tariffs weren't the ideal way to address the emergencies that other presidents declared under the law.

Plus, there’s no question that Trump is by far more comfortable with tariffs as an economic and foreign policy tool than his predecessors, Sauer said.

– Maureen Groppe

Kagan says Trump wants unlimited tariff authority for presidents

Justice Elena Kagan questioned why presidents would ever use statutes that specifically allow for tariffs in particular circumstances if President Trump is right that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act gives presidents the ability to “blow past those limits.”

Solicitor General John Sauer said the International Emergency Economic Powers Act has its own constraints, including that there has to be an emergency.

Kagan noted that the administration argues that courts can’t review a president’s emergency declaration.

“So that doesn’t seem like much of a constraint,” she said.

– Maureen Groppe

Thomas invites Trump lawyer to defend tariffs

After John Sauer, the lawyer arguing on behalf of the Trump administration, was peppered with tough questions from other justices – especially liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan – Justice Clarence Thomas, a conservative on the court, essentially invited Sauer to make the case for the administration.

Thomas said he anticipated the other side in the case, when it has a chance to speak later today, would argue that Congress never delegated its authority to impose these types of tariffs to the president. He asked Sauer to anticipate that argument and respond to it.

Sauer argued that there's a distinction within the law between Congress delegating its powers on domestic issues and delegating its powers on foreign issues.

Thomas followed up by asking Sauer to also explain why the administration believes the particular law in this case is unique. That could be an avenue for the court to uphold Trump's powers in this case, even though it has struck down emergency powers in other contexts, such as an effort by President Joe Biden to provide major student loan forgiveness.

"There's been extremely broad delegations of the power to tariff specifically, and the power to regulate foreign commerce more generally, going back to the time of the founding," Sauer responded.

– Aysha Bagchi

Alito asks about court decision that found Congress sets tariff rates

Justice Samuel Alito said a previous court ruling found that the Trading with the Enemy Act didn’t allow the president to set duties at will without Congress setting the rates. He asked Sauer what that meant for the statute disputed in the current case.

Sauer said the decision Alito cited found no power to regulate tariffs at all. But Sauer said that the administration’s power to impose “a sweeping global tariff” was supported by other high-court rulings dating to 1824.

– Bart Jansen

Chief justice is skeptical of administration’s arguments

In an extended back-and-forth with Solicitor General John Sauer, Chief Justice John Roberts showed skepticism about some of the administration’s arguments.

Roberts said the president’s claim of authority to impose tariffs on any product from any country for any amount of time sounds like the kind of major power that the court has previously said needs to be clearly given to a president by Congress.

When Sauer said lawmakers did just that, Roberts noted the statute at issue doesn’t even use the word “tariff.”

Tariffs, Roberts said, are a tax on Americans.

“And that has always been the core power of Congress,” he said.

When Sauer disputed that tariffs are taxes, Roberts asked who pays for tariffs on an automobile. And he noted that Trump’s tariffs have raised a significant amount of money for the federal budget.

Sauer called that “an incidental and collateral effect of the tariffs.”

– Maureen Groppe

Kagan, Sotomayor focus on president’s lack of taxing authority

Two of the liberal justices focused on the lack of language in the disputed statute granting the president the power to impose tariffs as taxes on imports that are projected to generate more than $3 trillion over a decade.

“Crucially, what it doesn’t have here is anything that refers to raising revenue,” Justice Elena Kagan said. “It has a lot of verbs, it has actions that can be taken under the statute, it just doesn’t have the one you want.”

Solicitor General John Sauer argued that Trump is imposing tariffs just to regulate or restrict the imports, not necessarily to tax them, which is “incidental.”

“We’re not saying it confers a revenue-raising power, we say it confers a regulating power and that’s a crucial distinction,” Saurer said.

Kagan asked if there was any statute that says regulatory power provides taxing power. Congress traditionally sets taxes under the Constitution.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted that the regulation applies to both imports and exports, but that the president can’t impose taxes on exports.

“You could agree that they couldn’t put tariffs on exportations?” Sotomayor asked. Sauer agreed.

“Why are we permitting them to do it with respect to importations?” Sotomayor asked.

Sauer said he wasn’t sure what other statutes use to regulate and tax, but he said the disputed statute evoked a historical power to tariff.

– Bart Jansen

Barrett questions administration’s expansive definition of 'regulate'

In her first questions in the Nov. 5 hearing, Justice Amy Coney Barrett homed in on the administration’s claim that the power to “regulate” imports includes the power to impose tariffs.

Barrett, a Trump appointee and one of the conservative justices whose vote could be key to the case, asked Solicitor General John Sauer to point to any other statute or any time in history when that phrase has been used to confer tariff authority.

Sauer said there’s a long tradition of broad delegations of power to the president to deal with foreign commerce.

– Maureen Groppe

Sotomayor compares Trump tariffs to Biden student loan forgiveness, which Supreme Court struck down

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, suggested that the Trump administration was attempting to use emergency powers in a similar way to Biden's use of such powers in a different context – for student loan forgiveness.

Sotomayor may be referring to a 2023 Supreme Court ruling. In a 6-3 vote, the court ruled that the Biden administration exceeded its powers when it announced it would cancel as much as $400 billion in student loans. Sotomayor and the other two liberal justices were in the minority in that case.

"So Biden could have declared a national emergency, and global warming, and then gotten his student forgiveness?" Sotomayor asked.

"Maybe I can articulate this way: The power to impose tariffs is a core application of the power to regulate foreign commerce," John Sauer responded on behalf of the Trump administration. Sauer suggested student loan forgiveness is fundamentally different.

– Aysha Bagchi

Jackson says Congress never intended to give presidents sweeping tariff powers

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, one of the court’s three liberals, pushed the Justice Department about whether Congress intended to give presidents such sweeping tariff authority as Trump has claimed.

Jackson said it’s clear to her that Congress was trying to constrain presidents’ emergency powers when it passed the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

Solicitor General John Sauer disputed that. He said lawmakers did not intend to change the scope of authority, the powers, or the tools of presidents.

– Maureen Groppe

Justices question president’s authority to impose tariffs

Justice Clarence Thomas opened the questioning by asking the government why the “major questions doctrine” applied to the case. The doctrine holds that Congress must make clear when it authorizes “major” power to the executive branch.

Solicitor General John Sauer said the president has “robust power” to act in foreign affairs under the Constitution and Trump was granted the authority to impose tariffs for national emergencies, as he did to combat fentanyl deaths through tariffs.

“One would expect Congress to confer major powers on the president to address major international crises, so to speak, and foreign rising emergencies,” Sauer said. “You’d expect Congress to grant major powers to the president who has his own broad range of major authority.”

Justice Elena Kagan asked Sauer which part of the Constitution granted the president the power to impose tariffs.

“Tariffs is the power to impose taxes, the power to regulate foreign commerce – these are not things that are thought of as Article II powers,” Kagan said.

Sauer said previous high court cases found the president has broad power to conduct foreign affairs.

“The court has recognized the president has broad inherent authority to address foreign situations, foreign affairs, foreign policy, including foreign arising emergencies,” Sauer said.

– Bart Jansen

Sotomayor voices skepticism toward Trump tariffs, calling them taxes

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a Barack Obama appointee, appeared skeptical of the Trump tariffs in her first question during the arguments. Sotomayor suggested the tariffs were operating like a tax, which she said was a power of Congress, not the presidency.

"It's a congressional power, not a presidential power, to tax. And you want to say tariffs are not taxes, but that's exactly what they are," she said.

John Sauer, who is arguing on behalf of the Trump administration, said that the tariffs are better understood as part of the president's executive powers under the Constitution, calling them "a foreign-facing regulation of foreign commerce."

– Aysha Bagchi

Justice Department makes opening argument

The arguments kick off with the Justice Department’s top Supreme Court lawyer making his opening pitch.

Solicitor General John Sauer told the justices the president was well within his authority to impose sweeping tariffs on nearly every imported product.

He started not with a legal argument, however, but with the president’s claim that tariffs are needed to make America a “strong financially viable and respected country.”

Trade deficits, Sauer said, are “country killing and not sustainable.”

– Maureen Groppe

Protesters pass SCOTUS as oral arguments begin

As oral arguments got underway, dozens of protesters, including many dressed like handmaids from "The Handmaid’s Tale," marched between the Supreme Court and the U.S. Capitol, chanting “no Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA.”

Just two demonstrators have remained outside the Supreme Court, including Nadine Seiler. Seiler, 60, said she was not closely following the case, but she came because she has personally felt the impact of tariffs on her grocery bill.“Trump is using the tariffs as extortion,” Seiler said. – N’dea Yancey-Bragg

Business owner: Tariffs are ‘crushing us’

Small-business owners and Democratic lawmakers held a news conference outside the Capitol, across the street from the Supreme Court, to argue against Trump’s tariffs.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen said that a baker in Derry, New Hampshire, said 85% of his contracts were with customers in Canada that he lost from tariffs. A manufacturer in Dover put an expansion on hold because of tariff concerns, she said.

“Nobody wants to invest because they don’t know what the president’s going to do tomorrow,” Shaheen said. “All of this economic pain is on the backs of Americans who are already suffering the high costs of living.”

Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vermont, said tariffs are a tax that Congress should set rather than have a president arbitrarily set rates on imports.

“What’s at stake here is the separation of powers,” Welch said. “That’s been hijacked not by an emergency but by a presidential whim.”

Dahlia Rizk, founder of Buckle Me Baby Coats in North Andover, Massachusetts, which makes puffer coats for children to wear safely in car seats, said she had trouble estimating how much tariffs would be because rates changed repeatedly.

She said she cut her order for inventory in half this year to reduce her risk. She budgeted $30,000 and had to pay $93,010.76.

“Tariffs trickle down to the people, and they are crushing us,” Rizk said.

– Bart Jansen

Is the government shutdown affecting the case?

Because Congress has remained at an impasse on funding for the next fiscal year, leading to the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, the Supreme Court has generally closed its building to the public. But it remains open for official business, which includes oral arguments. And seats in the courtroom are available for the public and press.

The court is also livestreaming audio of the arguments as usual. Because Congress has not agreed on a budget for this fiscal year, the Supreme Court has generally closed its building to the public. But it remains open for official business, which includes oral arguments. And seats in the courtroom are available for the public and press.

The court is also livestreaming audio of the arguments as usual.

− Maureen Groppe

Why President Nixon’s tariffs may come up

Although President Donald Trump is the first president to use the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose tariffs, President Richard Nixon implemented something similar under a predecessor law.

Nixon imposed temporary tariffs of 10% under the Trading with the Enemy Act that included similar language to IEEPA.

A challenge to those tariffs never reached the Supreme Court. But an appeals court sided with Nixon, although it ruled that “emergencies are expected to be short-lived.”

In today’s dispute, both sides say that the previous case works in their favor.

– Maureen Groppe

Trump calls Supreme Court case ‘LIFE OR DEATH’ for country

Trump has called his tariffs crucial for the country, both to raise money to pay down the national debt and to encourage manufacturers to relocate jobs at home.

But lower courts have said he overstepped his authority by imposing the tariffs around the world. Trump argued in a social media post on Nov. 4 that the “case is, literally LIFE OR DEATH for our country” because if the justices rule against him, foreign rivals will continue charging their own tariffs or impose restrictions on imports.

“Our Stock Market is consistently hitting Record Highs, and our Country has never been more respected than it is right now,” Trump said .“A big part of this is the Economic Security created by Tariffs, and the Deals that we have negotiated because of them.”

– Bart Jansen

How long will the arguments last?

The arguments are scheduled for 80 minutes, which is 20 minutes longer than most cases.

But, as with most cases, the debate is expected to go longer than the allotted time. For major cases like this one, the justices can ask the attorneys questions for more than two hours.

– Maureen Groppe

Who is arguing for the states challenging the tariffs?

Benjamin Gutman, Oregon's solicitor general, is representing the dozen states challenging Trump's tariffs.

The other states suing are: Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York and Vermont.

"Congress, not the President, decides whether and how much to tax Americans who import goods from abroad," Gutman said in his written argument. "This Court should reject the President’s bid to seize that power for himself."

−Maureen Groppe

Who is arguing for the small businesses challenging the tariffs?

Neal Katyal, former acting solicitor general under President Barack Obama, is representing the small businesses challenging Trump's tariffs.

Katyal has argued dozens of cases before the Supreme Court and previously clerked for former Justice Stephen Breyer.

During the first Trump administration, Katyal argued that the president overstepped his authority when he restricted travel into the United States for people from five predominantly Muslim countries. (The court upheld Trump's travel ban.)

−Maureen Groppe

Importers behind the case in good spirits

Some of the plaintiffs who are challenging Trump’s tariffs arrived in good spirits outside the Supreme Court on Nov. 5. Victor Schwartz, a New York-based wine importer, and Rick Woldenberg, CEO of Illinois-based educational toy company Learning Resources, posed for photos with their teams outside the court before heading inside to prepare for oral arguments.“I feel very confident in our position,” Woldenberg told USA TODAY.

Woldenberg reflected on how important the “sprawling” case has become, saying “the implications of this case are really quite significant, like how our government functions and whether we can rely on the rule of law, which I think we're so dependent on.”

Who is arguing for Trump?

Solicitor General John Sauer, the government’s top lawyer on Supreme Court matters, is making the Trump administration's case.

Sauer, who clerked for the late Justice Antonin Scalia, is a former federal prosecutor and former solicitor general of Missouri.

He represented Trump in last year’s blockbuster case about presidential immunity and represented the administration in May when the justices debated whether lower courts could temporarily block the president's changes to birthright citizenship.

−Maureen Groppe

Trump is not attending Supreme Court hearing, but Bessent will

Trump had expressed an interest in attending the high court’s hearing because of the importance of tariffs to the country, but he will be giving an economic speech in Miami instead.

Trump will be speaking at the America Business Forum, where he will tout the country’s economic success to business leaders, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Nov. 4.

“The president did have an interest in attending the Supreme Court hearing,” Leavitt said. “But Secretary Scott Bessent will be at the hearing at the request of the president.”

−Bart Jansen

Tariff case scrambles some ideological divisions

The case has highlighted the split among conservatives between the free-traders who once dominated the GOP and those now backing Trump’s protectionist stance.

Prominent conservative economists signed briefs opposing the tariffs, as have former judges appointed by Republican presidents.

On the other side, the tariffs have divided appeals court judges appointed by former President Barack Obama who heard the case. Two of the four judges who sided with Trump when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled 7-4 against him were appointed by Obama.

One authored the dissent, which was heavily quoted by the administration in its written arguments to the Supreme Court.

−Maureen Groppe

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Supreme Court take up Trump's tariffs in high-impact case: Live updates

Reporting by Maureen Groppe, Bart Jansen, Aysha Bagchi, N'dea Yancey-Bragg and Rachel Barber, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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