If you followed last week's U.S. Supreme Court oral arguments over President Donald Trump's supposed power to impose tariffs without first receiving clear authorization from Congress, you may have noticed that Solicitor General John Sauer repeatedly cited a Supreme Court precedent called United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corporation (1936). By my count, Sauer mentioned Curtiss-Wright six times by name during the arguments and referenced it obliquely several times more.

Why? The answer is simple enough: If a majority of the Supreme Court views Learning Resources v. Trump as a kind of progeny of Curtiss-Wright, then Trump's tariffs stand a good chance of emerging victorious.

The origins of the Curtiss-Wright case lie in a mostly forgotten military conflict from the 1930s between Boliv

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