The Supreme Court ruled Friday that President Donald Trump does not have the authority to impose tariffs on imports coming into the United States from virtually all countries. This could reduce costs for US companies that rely heavily on overseas manufacturing, including Apple.
In the months since Trump began imposing tariffs across the board, Apple has paid billions in those import taxes. And it has reorganized its supply chain to shift some of the assembly of products from China, the country the president has primarily targeted in his tariff policy.
Trump’s sweeping tariffs have been rolled back
Under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the president has the power to impose tariffs in a crisis. But it doesn’t define what constitutes a trade emergency, so Trump simply declared it whenever he wanted to tax a country’s imports into the United States. This resulted in $133 billion in fees by the end of 2025
But in a ruling that limits the scope of executive authority under the IEEPA, the high court said the Trump administration had overreached in imposing sweeping tariffs on a wide range of imported goods.
“The Framers did not vest any part of the taxing power in the executive branch,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, according to Reuters. Reuters. Only Congress has the power to tax.
What this means for Apple
Despite Trump’s claim that exporting countries bear the cost of tariffs, Apple has paid billions in taxes on imports from China and other countries. Apple, for example, paid roughly $1.4 billion in tariffs in the December quarter.
But even though the Supreme Court has now struck down the tariffs as illegal, there is currently no system in place for Apple to get that money back.
“The court is saying nothing today about whether, and if so, how the government should go about returning the trillions of dollars it collected from importers. But the process is likely to be ‘a mess, as acknowledged at oral argument,'” wrote dissenting Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Companies that Trump pays “reciprocal” and emergency tariffs will likely have to seek refunds through administrative protests or litigation, and the process could be complex and lengthy.
Limit Trump’s power
Perhaps more importantly, however, the Supreme Court’s decision means Trump no longer has unlimited control over the tariffs. For example, he doesn’t have the power to threaten Apple with a special 25% import tax on every iPhone made outside the United States, as he did last spring. And that means more stability for Apple.
However, despite the removal of these import taxes, the company is unlikely to reverse course in expanding production outside of China. The shift to assembling more iPhones in India, Vietnam, etc. is also driven by other factors – the pandemic has clearly exposed the problems of over-reliance on one country.