February 20, 2026 09:23 AM UTC

SCOTUS Ends Trump Trade Wars That Gabe Evans Celebrated

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• by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: A very angry Trump lashed out at the Supreme Court and said he plans to now institute a 10% across-the-board tariff. Is that…legal? As The New York Times explains:

Trump is claiming that he does not need to work with Congress on his tariff policy. That is at odds with the opinion just issued by the Supreme Court. “The President asserts the extraordinary power to unilaterally impose tariffs of unlimited amount, duration, and scope,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote. “In light of the breadth, history, and constitutional context of that asserted authority, he must identify clear congressional authorization to exercise it.”

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As Politico reports, the Friday news cycle kicked off this morning with a record scratch from the U.S. Supreme Court that will reverberate for the remainder of President Donald Trump’s time in office:

The Supreme Court on Friday struck down President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs — a major repudiation of a core piece of Trump’s economic program.

The 6-3 decision is a rare instance of the conservative-led court reining in Trump’s expansive use of executive power. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch joined the court’s three liberals in the majority…

The ruling wipes out the 10 percent tariff Trump imposed on nearly every country in the world, as well as specific, higher tariffs on some of the top U.S. trading partners, including Canada, Mexico, China, the European Union, Japan and South Korea.

CNN with some initial analysis while the world comes to grip with this momentous check on Trump’s pushing of the boundaries of executive power:

The decision is arguably the most important loss the second Trump administration has sustained at the conservative Supreme Court, which last year repeatedly sided with the president in a series of emergency rulings on immigration, the firing of the leaders of independent agencies and deep cuts to government spending.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion and the court agreed 6-3 that the tariffs exceeded the law. The court, however, did not say what should happen to the more than $130 billion in tariffs that has already been collected…

Although the court didn’t directly address the question of what happens to all that illegally collected money, but as NBC News reports, the American businesses who paid it want it back:

The decision does not affect all of Trump’s tariffs, leaving in place ones he imposed on steel and aluminum using different laws, for example. But it upends his tariffs in two categories. One is country-by-country or “reciprocal” tariffs, which range from 34% for China to a 10% baseline for the rest of the world. The other is a 25% tariff Trump imposed on some goods from Canada, China and Mexico for what the administration said was their failure to curb the flow of fentanyl.

Companies that had to pay the tariffs may be able to seek a refund from the Treasury Department. Hundreds have already sued.

The court did not directly address that issue, but Kavanaugh, in dissent, said the effect on the U.S. Treasury could be significant.

High on the list of Republicans struggling for a response to this decision is America’s Most Vulnerable Incumbent™ Rep. Gabe Evans, who despite a swing district full of business interests that have been negatively impacted by Trump’s tariffs has offered nothing but obsequious praise for Trump’s erratic economic policies since taking office with Trump a year ago. When Trump first announced his “reciprocal” tariff regime last spring, almost crashing the global economy in the process before pulling back many of them, Gabe Evans compared Trump’s actions to a master pool player’s rack break. Shortly followed by this Axios headline:

Axios’ Esteban Hernandez:

U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans (R-Fort Lupton) says President Trump’s tariffs are helping level the playing field for an agricultural industry that’s critical to his district’s economic success…

Why it matters: The freshman congressman is firmly aligning himself with Trump, despite the president’s unpopularity in Colorado, as the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee aims to flip the seat.

The intrigue: A majority of Americans believe the on-again, off-again steep tariffs will result in increased prices in the short term, per a poll conducted after Trump’s “Liberation Day” announcements.

Despite Trump’s earnest attempts to sell his tariffs as the panacea for all of America’s economic problems, the public has never at any point shown majority support for Trump’s tariff policies since he retook office. With polling on the issue consistently showing 60% or more of the public opposed to Trump’s tariffs, Evans’ decision to fall in line like a good MAGA soldier and defend them to his constituents was politically inexplicable.

As of this morning, it’s a full-scale political disaster.

All we can say as we have many times is that Gabe Evans didn’t have to take this burden on. Tariffs are inherently an un-conservative, anti-free market tool, and Evans could have stayed true to conservative principles in a way that would have also made political sense in his district. But just like fully embracing Trump’s equally unpopular mass deportation campaign and disparaging the health insurance subsidies that thousands in his district are now doing without, Gabe Evans has chosen at every opportunity to side with Trump over the best interests of his constituents.

Rep. Gabe Evans is going down with the ship. Today, the ship listed bigly.