The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that President Donald Trump does not have the authority to impose tariffs as he has done. Although markets took the decision in stride, the impact on crypto will likely be modest – at least for now – as political considerations could influence the industry’s political trajectory in Washington.
Although Trump’s aggressive and sometimes turbulent pursuit of tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act is halted, the president has a number of other options to replace them with tariffs available in other legal authorities governing U.S. commerce. He said at a news conference Friday after the “deeply disappointing” ruling that “there are methods, practices, statutes and authorities, as the entire court recognized in this terrible decision … that are even stricter than the IEEPA tariffs available to me as President of the United States.”
“Other alternatives will now be used to replace those that the court wrongly rejected,” Trump said, announcing he would order a new 10 percent overall tariff.
In the short term, whatever concerns policymakers in the coming weeks could threaten to steal some of the oxygen from the U.S. Senate’s already risky schedule to achieve the crypto industry’s primary goal: passage of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act that would govern the structure of the U.S. crypto market.
Senator Bernie Moreno, Republican of Ohio, a staunch Trump supporter and a leading crypto advocate, posted on the social media site »
Across the aisle, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, celebrated the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision but suggested it left intact the harm already imposed on consumers. Earlier this month, the Tax Foundation reported an estimated per-household impact of $1,000 last year and $1,300 this year due to the tariffs.
“The court struck down these destructive tariffs, but there is no legal mechanism for consumers and many small businesses to get back the money they have already paid,” U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren said in a statement. “Instead, giant corporations, with their armies of lawyers and lobbyists, can sue for refunds of tariffs and then pocket the money for themselves. This is yet another example of how the game is rigged.”
The Cato Institute, however, hopes for reimbursement of the “tens of billions” of customs duties collected thanks to customs tariffs.
“This refund process might be easy, but it seems more likely that more litigation and paperwork will be required – a particularly unfair burden on small importers who lack the resources to litigate tariff refund claims and yet have never done anything wrong,” according to a statement released Friday by the economists at the libertarian think tank.
The impact of the crypto bill
Despite the legal resolution, the tariff dispute and its aftermath will likely be the focus of this year’s congressional midterm elections, and these races could have a profound effect on the crypto sector.
If Congress has not yet passed a market structure bill by this summer, the industry’s political efforts will depend on the outcome of these elections, especially if they change the majority in the House of Representatives or both chambers of Congress. And while the crypto industry already has the Clarity Act in hand, a number of other legislative initiatives are in play on taxation and bitcoin. reserves.
The Supreme Court’s rebuke of Trump’s illegal tariff regime could provide some boost to Democratic candidates in otherwise tight races.
Democratic candidates will seek to convince voters that they were personally harmed by the tariffs, as Warren has argued. If enough Democrats win to secure a majority in the House, they could make it much harder to move forward on current crypto policy without heavy overhauls that could impose more constraints on the sector.
Read more: Bitcoin Rises Then Falls As Supreme Court Overturns Trump Tariffs
UPDATE (February 20, 2026, 7:26 p.m. UTC): Adds Trump’s new tariff announcement.
