KEY POINTS
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he is “confident” Donald Trump’s tariff plan “will win” at the Supreme Court, but warned the U.S. would be forced to issue massive refunds if it loses.
National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett noted that there are “other legal authorities” that the administration could use if the tariffs are blocked.
Before court action, Trump’s tariffs were set to affect nearly 70% of U.S. goods imports.
The chance that this Supreme Court is going to rule against Trump is not coincidentally exactly equal to the amount of integrity its conservarive members possess - zero.
This weak diversion isn’t out there to try to sway their decision - their decision is a foregone conclusion. The point is just to provide a readymade rationale for some number of people, so they can excuse the Supreme Court’s inevitable betrayal of law, precedent and the Constitution with “Well, they had to do that - imagine how much money blah blah blah…”
And besides, if money really was an issue, the administration could easily make up the shortfall simply by making billionaires pay something approaching their fair share of taxes.
I mean, if the Supreme Court rules in favor of the tarrif then the market tanks and everyone gets to blame both. Absolute win!
The financial hardship into which millions will be plunged is not something to giddily be looking forward to saying “I told you so” about.
It’s a shame it has to get to that point, but it seems like it’s the only way the American people will finally rise up and fight back against MAGA & the billionaire class.
It ain’t gonna happen if a bunch of sanctimonious assholes just use it as an excuse to gloat at people who are suffering.
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I said it once and I’ll say it again. They will say that Congress must stop it.
Then fuck off on their (checks notes) RV…? Now that was cheap!
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SCOTUS won’t rule against Trump.
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Refunds won’t go back to the buyers.
Ya’ll are fucked.
There’s a possibility that the SCOTUS will say no further tariffs are legal but the ones in place had a pseudo-legally-valid status just by virtue of not yet being declared not-legal by the SCOTUS.
👆 this guy weasels
That’s still #1
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Bessent has warned that a delayed ruling “could result in a scenario in which $750 billion-$1 trillion in tariffs have already been collected.”
“But, Your Honor. I’ve been running people over in my truck for a good three months now. If you ruled that running people over in my truck is illegal, why…there’d have to be considerable compensation paid!”
It’s a novel argument.
What phenomenal bullshit - There’s no way they’ve collected that much, or even will by the end of the year. That’s 20% of the Federal budget, or 3% of GDP, collected in the last 5 months of the year after whiplash, back and forth “we’re doing it today, no, now we’re waiting 2 weeks”?
They’re setting this all up for the largest theft ever committed on Earth.
If this happens, businesses will get the money and we won’t see a dime of that refund. FUCK THE US GOVERNMENT!
The main people who will get the money are the import brokers who have been leveraging their businesses against the tariffs with the expectation that the money will eventually be refunded.
Americans have been protected against the largest impacts from the tariffs over the past 7 months by these loans. Things would have been MUCH worse when purchasing goods without this.
As a result, if the refunds DON’T go through, all the importers will have to default on their loans, sending both the financial and import industries into a tailspin — PLUS everyone having to shoulder the full effects of the ongoing tariffs.
I didn’t realize this was happening. Where can I find out more about this?
It also doesn’t fix the smaller businesses that had to shutter already.
Hate them if you want, but it doesn’t fix the 100+ rural Walmart locations shut down forcing some people to have to go an additional 20 miles and pay higher prices.
Doesn’t really matter which way it goes, the damage was the point and it succeeded.
As always “The damage was the point” is giving Trump too much credit. He’s not trying to hurt America. He’s more interested in enriching himself than enriching his nation, for sure, but he also sees his fortunes as fundamentally tied to those of America and you can see that clearly in his statements and public actions going back long before his presidential ambitions.
He wants America to be the greatest, most respected, most powerful country in the world, and he’s doing what he thinks will achieve that.
It’s not malice; not towards America as a country, anyway. He’s just genuinely, truly, that incompetent and so are the people around him, because he surrounds himself with people who make him feel smart.
And before you bring it up, yes, he’s a Russian asset. Of course he is. But he’s not the kind of asset you give orders to. They don’t need to. He’s more than capable of doing all the damage they want without any direction.
As another commenter here beautifully put it, “He’s a fire and forget idiot.”
Then he shouldn’t have fuckin’ done it then.
massive refunds
So he means… a tax cut!?
massive refunds
But not for you
The law shouldn’t care about your bad economic schemes.
Make no mistake, this is simply a warning from the government to the supreme court.
Imagine however if the court would use this case as a test, to see whether or not they still have any influence at all in the separation of powers.
We all know which way this will go.
Should’ve thought about that dumbass
If this money is refunded, where would it go? It won’t come back to consumers. It probably won’t be spent on investments due to the uncertain economic climate. I think it would either disappear from the economy by getting locked “on the sidelines” or be pumped in the asset markets, US or foreign.
Is he trying to get ahead of Trump just ignoring a ruling?
This feels like a damned if you do, damned if you don’t thing.
Too bad they’re not personally liable.
