Jeff Guo

Hello and welcome to Planet Money.

I'm Jeff Guo.

Today on the show, why are the tariffs illegal?

And what does this mean for businesses, for Cara, for the rest of us?

Are any of us going to get refunds?

For that, we called up Georgetown Law Professor Kathleen Claussen, who is an expert on the law of tariffs.

We had her on the show back when Trump's big new tariffs were first getting challenged in the courts.

Actually, the justices had a lot of thoughts about AIPA.

There are multiple opinions.

The whole thing is 170 pages.

Yeah, so this decision, it kind of landed on your desk with a thump.

Yeah, you see, in AIPA, it doesn't literally say the president can impose tariffs.

It says something much more vague.

It says the president may, quote, regulate, dot, dot, dot, importation, like the importation of goods.

Was that like a mic drop moment?

Basically, those are the most important words the Supreme Court said today.

It said those words in IEPA regulate dot, dot, dot importation.

They do not mean that the president can create giant sweeping across the board tariffs on countries around the world.

That is not what the law means, the court said.

So let me ask you the obvious question, which is, are any of us going to get our money back?