President Donald Trump on Wednesday criticized two of his Supreme Court appointees — Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett — for voting with other justices in the bombshell 6-3 decision that ruled his signature reciprocal tariffs were illegal, saying they sickened him and are "bad for our country."
"Two of the people that voted for that, I appointed," Trump said at the National Republican Congressional Committee dinner at Union Station in Washington, D.C., without naming the two justices.
Trump blasted Gorsuch and Barrett, along with the four other justices in the majority of the case, for not exempting the U.S. government from refunding up to $165 billion in tariffs paid by American importers under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
"The Supreme Court, that's right, of the United States cost our country — all they needed was a sentence — our country hundreds of billions of dollars, and they couldn't care less," Trump fumed. "They couldn't care less."
Referring to Gorsuch and Barrett, Trump said, "And they sicken me."
"They sicken me because they're bad for our country," Trump added.
Trump's other appointee to the high court, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, dissented along with two fellow conservatives, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas.
The majority, in its decision in the case known as Learning Resources Inc. v. Trump, said on Feb. 20 that a president does not have the authority to unilaterally impose tariffs on imports from most countries under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, as Trump had claimed.
"Based on two words separated by 16 others in Section 1702(a)(1)(B) of IEEPA —'regulate' and 'importation' — the President asserts the independent power to impose tariffs on imports from any country, of any product, at any rate, for any amount of time," wrote Chief Justice John Roberts in the majority decision.
"Those words cannot bear such weight," wrote Roberts, who, like Gorsuch and Barrett, is a conservative.
Since the ruling, the Trump administration has moved to replace the revenue the U.S. government would have collected if the IEEPA tariffs had been upheld.
Trump, on Feb. 20, invoked Section 122 of the Trade Act to impose global tariffs of 10% on imports, but those duties last for just 150 days unless Congress approves an extension.
Earlier this month, the office of U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer opened trade investigations into nearly 80 countries and economies under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, including China, Japan, India, Mexico, and the European Union.
Section 301 allows the U.S. to impose tariffs on imports from nations found to have engaged in unfair trade practices.
