In the coming days, a legal decision might decide the fate of the Trump administration’s crowning policy achievement: tariffs.

In recent days, the Justice Department has defending the Trump tariffs against a legal challenge brought by small business importers. Lawyers representing those small businesses won in a previous case in the Court of International Trade. The Justice Department has appealed and arguments have been heard by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

The court is expected to render a decision soon, which could affirm Trump’s right to use emergency powers to impose tariffs. However, the court could also render a decision which rejects the legality of Trump’s tariffs. 

That could affect the latest levies, which went into effect on Wednesday after a 90-day detente, which came after the stock market tanked in the face of Trump’s initial “reciprocal tariff” announcement. 

As a result, the U.S. now has an average effective tariff rate of 18.3%, the highest since 1934.

Trump defended the tariffs on Truth Social this afternoon, saying that they are “having a huge positive impact on the Stock Market” and generating “Hundreds of Billions of Dollars.” In Jul. 2025, the official monthly tariff revenue collected by the U.S. was $29.6 billion. Thus far, the impacts on inflation have been minimal, but Federal Reserve officials and economists expect a “temporary” increase in prices.

Trump went on to warn that a ruling against the tariffs would “be 1929 all over again, a GREAT DEPRESSION!” (The 1929 stock market crash was mostly directly caused by the excessive use of leverage in the stock market.)

However, regardless of how the case lands, it might well be on its way to the Supreme Court. The court of final resort currently has more conservatives than liberals, who might be more sensitive to the Justice Department’s argument.

In previous cases, the conservative court sided with Trump by limiting federal judges’ power to use nationwide injunctions to stop executive orders. Previously, the conservative majority also ruled that the former presidents have “broad immunity” from criminal prosecution.

But despite the fact that Trump nominated three of the justices on today’s court, it has also issued decisions which he has been critical of the president’s goals. And only there, in the hands of the six conservatives and three liberal justices, can Trump’s tariff suit reach the real end of the line.

And if the new wave of tariffs is upheld, it might eventually meet its match at the ballot box. Recent polling shows that, on average, the majority of Americans disapprove of tariffs. Americans have drawn a connection between the levies and the risk of renewed inflation challenges. Many Americans voted for Trump thinking that he would solve inflation. If he doesn’t, they might well vote for Democrats in the forthcoming midterm elections, complicating his presidential ambitions.