Trump not going to Supreme Court tariff case arguments

President Donald Trump, who recently suggested he would be at the Supreme Court on Wednesday for oral arguments in the case that will determine the fate of many of his wide-ranging tariffs, now says he will not attend.

“I will not be going to the Court on Wednesday in that I do not want to distract from the importance of this Decision,” Trump wrote Sunday in a Truth Social post.

“It will be, in my opinion, one of the most important and consequential Decisions ever made by the United States Supreme Court,” he wrote.

Trump said on Oct. 15 that if he loses the case, “we will be a weakened, troubled, financial mess for many, many years to come.

“That’s why I think I’m going to go to the Supreme Court to watch,” Trump said at the time.

If he had gone, Trump likely would have been the first sitting U.S. president to attend oral arguments at the Supreme Court.

The Justice Department is asking the Supreme Court to reverse lower federal court rulings in two separate cases that found that Trump did not have the legal authority to impose so-called reciprocal tariffs on April 2 on imported goods from nearly every country in the world.

The tariffs range from a baseline of 10% on many countries to as high as 50% on imported goods from Brazil and India.

Also at stake in the case is the legality of separate “fentanyl tariffs” that Trump slapped on some imports from China, Canada and Mexico. Trump said the tariffs on those countries were for not stopping the flow of that deadly drug into the United States.

Trump had invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose the tariffs.

On Sunday, Trump wrote, “If a President is not allowed to use Tariffs, we will be at a major disadvantage against all other Countries throughout the World, especially the ‘Majors.’ “

“In a true sense, we would be defenseless,” he said.