Justice Gorsuch's Powerful Concurring Opinion (USA Tariffs)

On February 20, 2026 a six-justice majority of the US Supreme Court ruled against President Donald Trumps tariffs which he had based on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977.

In a powerful concurring piece, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote about more than just the tariff question, but about the US Constitution in the run up to the 250th anniversary of the country’s independence from the United Kingdom.

It is well worth the read and time well spent.

If you want to download the PDF of this Justice Gorsuch Opinion you can do it via this link: Supreme Court – Neil Gorsuch Concurring

If you want to download the entire judgement as a PDF, use this link: Supreme Court – Full Tariff Ruling

Bear with me as there’s a LOT of hyphens that need removing from the text after copying from the PDF…

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Cite as: S. ____ (2026) GORSUCH, J., concurring

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES _________________ Nos. 24–1287 and 25–250 _________________ LEARNING RESOURCES, INC., ET AL., PETITIONERS 24–1287 v. DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, ET AL. ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI BEFORE JUDGMENT TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, ET AL., PETITIONERS v. V.O.S. SELECTIONS, INC., ET AL.

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FEDERAL CIRCUIT [February 20, 2026]

JUSTICE GORSUCH, concurring.

The President claims that Congress delegated to him an extraordinary power in the International Emergency Eco-nomic Powers Act (IEEPA)—the power to impose tariffs on practically any products he wants, from any countries he chooses, in any amounts he selects. Applying the major questions doctrine, the principal opinion rejects that argu-ment. I join in full. The Constitution lodges the Nation’s lawmaking powers in Congress alone, and the major ques-tions doctrine safeguards that assignment against execu-tive encroachment. Under the doctrine’s terms, the Presi-dent must identify clear statutory authority for the extraordinary delegated power he claims. And, as the prin-cipal opinion explains, that is a standard he cannot meet.

Whatever else might be said about Congress’s work in IEEPA, it did not clearly surrender to the President the sweeping tariff power he seeks to wield. Not everyone sees it this way. Past critics of the major questions doctrine do not object to its application in this case, and they even join much of today’s principal opinion. But, they insist, they can reach the same result by employ-ing only routine tools of statutory interpretation. Post, at 1 (KAGAN, J., joined by SOTOMAYOR and JACKSON, JJ., con-curring in part and concurring in judgment). Meanwhile, one colleague who joins the principal opinion in full sug-gests the major questions doctrine is nothing more than routine statutory interpretation. Post, at 1 (BARRETT, J., concurring). Still others who have joined major questions decisions in the past dissent from today’s application of the doctrine. Post, at 1 (KAVANAUGH, J., joined by THOMAS and ALITO, JJ., dissenting). Finally, seeking to sidestep the ma-jor questions doctrine altogether, one colleague submits that Congress may hand over to the President most of its powers, including the tariff power, without limit. Post, at 1–2 (THOMAS, J., dissenting). It is an interesting turn of events. Each camp warrants a visit.

Start with the critics. In the past, they have criticized the major questions doctrine for two main reasons. The doc-trine, they have suggested, is a novelty without basis in law. West Virginia v. EPA, 597 U. S. 697, 779 (2022)(KAGAN, J., joined by, inter alios, SOTOMAYOR, J., dissent-ing) (calling the doctrine a “special cano[n]” that has “mag-ically appear[ed]”). And, they have argued, the doctrine is rooted in an “anti-administrative-state stance” that pre-vents Congress from employing executive agency officials to “d[o] important work.” Id., at 780. Today, the critics pro-ceed differently. They join a section of the principal opinion that applies the major questions doctrine. Ante, at 14–20. And rather than critique the doctrine, they say only that it is “unnecessary” in this case “because ordinary principles of statutory interpretation lead to the same result.” Post, at 2–3 (opinion of KAGAN, J.).

Unpack that last claim first. My concurring colleagues contend that, as a matter of “straight-up statutory construc-tion,” IEEPA does not grant the President the power to im-pose tariffs. Post, at 7. In doing so, they make thoughtful points about the statute’s text and context. But their ap-proach today is difficult to square with how they have in-terpreted other statutes. Dissenting in past major ques-tions cases, they have argued that broad statutory language granting powers to executive officials should be read for all it is worth. Yet, now, when it comes to IEEPA’s similarly broad language granting powers to the President, they take a more constrained approach. Consider some examples of how they have proceeded in the past. Dissenting in National Federation of Independent Business v. OSHA, 595 U. S. 109 (2022) (per curiam)(NFIB), two of my concurring colleagues confronted a stat-ute charging the Occupational Safety and Health Admin-istration with promoting “safe and healthful working con-ditions.” Id., at 127, 132 (joint opinion of Breyer, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ.) (internal quotation marks omitted). They read that language as authorizing the agency to impose a vaccine mandate on 84 million Ameri-cans. Id., at 132; id., at 120 (per curiam). In support of their reading, my colleagues stressed the statute’s “expan-sive language,” another provision authorizing the agency to issue temporary “emergency standards,” and “the scope of the crisis” the agency was trying to address. Id., at 132, 135 (joint dissent) (internal quotation marks omitted). Dissenting in Alabama Assn. of Realtors v. Department of Health and Human Servs., 594 U. S. 758 (2021) (per curiam), my colleagues addressed a statute permitting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to issue reg-ulations “necessary to prevent the . . . transmission . . . of communicable diseases.” Id., at 768 (opinion of Breyer, J., joined by SOTOMAYOR and KAGAN, JJ.) (internal quotation marks omitted). As they saw it, those terms granted the agency the power to regulate landlord-tenant relations na-tionwide during COVID–19. Ibid. In reaching this conclu-sion, my colleagues again highlighted the statute’s “broad” language and suggested that it permitted the agency to im-pose even “greater restrictions” than the ones at issue in the case. Id., at 769.

Dissenting in West Virginia, my colleagues faced a stat-ute allowing the Environmental Protection Agency to ensure power plants employ the “best system of emission re-duction.” 597 U. S., at 758 (opinion of KAGAN, J.) (internal quotation marks omitted). They read that provision as au-thorizing the agency to effectively close many power plants and transform the electricity industry from coast to coast. See id., at 754–755. In support, they once more argued that the statutory language was “broad” and “expansive,” with “no ifs, ands, or buts.” Id., at 756–758. They stressed, too, that the relevant statutory terms appeared in “major legislation” intended to address “big problems,” and that the statute authorized actions in the agency’s “traditional lane” or “wheelhouse.” Id., at 756–757, 765. Finally, dissenting in Biden v. Nebraska, 600 U. S. 477 (2023), my colleagues took up a statute permitting the Secretary of Education to “waive or modify any statutory or regulatory provision applying to [a federal] student-loan program” during a national emergency. Id., at 533 (opinion of KAGAN, J., joined by SOTOMAYOR and JACKSON, JJ.) (internal quotation marks omitted). They said that language allowed the Secretary to cancel $430 billion in federal student-loan debt because of COVID–19. See ibid.; id., at 501 (majority opinion). Once again, they argued that the statutory terms were “broad,” “expansive,” “capacious,” and designed to afford the Secretary a “poten[t]” power to respond to “national emergencies” that were “major in scope.” Id., at 533–542 (KAGAN, J., dissenting). Now compare all that to how my colleagues proceed here. This case, they say, is “nearly the opposite.” Post, at 3. While straight-up statutory interpretation granted executive officials all the power they sought in all those other cases, my colleagues insist this one is different because IEEPA simply does not “give the President the power he wants.” Ibid. That’s a striking turn given the statutory terms before us. When the President declares a national emergency “to deal with any unusual and extraordinary threat . . . to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States,” 50 U. S. C. §1701(a), IEEPA permits him to “regulate . . . importation . . . of . . . any property in which any foreign country or a national thereof has any interest,” §1702(a)(1)(B). Surely, the authority granted here is “broad” and “expansive.” See West Virginia, 597 U. S., at 758–759 (KAGAN, J., dissenting). It has “no ifs, ands, or buts” either. Id., at 756. As a matter of ordinary meaning, the term “regulate” means to “fix, establish or control,” “adjust by rule, method, or established mode,” “direct by rule or restriction,” or “subject to governing principles or laws.” Black’s Law Dictionary 1156 (5th ed. 1979); see also post, at 4. And tariffs do just that—they fix rules that control, adjust, or govern imports of “property in which any foreign country or a national thereof has any interest.” §1702(a)(1)(B)

Without question IEEPA is also “major legislation” de-signed to address “big problems” and “crises,” West Virginia, 597 U. S., at 754, 756–758 (KAGAN, J., dissenting)(internal quotation marks omitted), along with “emergencies” that are “major in scope,” Nebraska, 600 U. S., at 542 (KAGAN, J., dissenting). By its terms, the statute appliesonly during declared national emergencies involving “threat[s]” to the “national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States.” §1701(a). And it tasks the President personally with responding to those emergencies, a responsibility surely more in his “lane” or “wheelhouse” than that of any other executive official. See West Virginia, 597 U. S., at 765 (KAGAN, J., dissenting). Notably, too, IEEPA grants the President the power to impose even “greater restrictions” than tariffs, Alabama Assn. of Realtors, 594 U. S., at 769 (Breyer, J., dissenting), because the statute also permits him to “nullify,” “prevent,” and “void” imports, §1702(a)(1)(B); see also Nebraska, 600 U. S., at 539 (KAGAN, J., dissenting).

Why do my concurring colleagues read IEEPA so much more narrowly than they have other broad statutory terms found in other major legislation addressing other emergen-cies? They say contextual clues justify a narrowing con-struction here. See post, at 3–7. But what the concurrence calls “context” looks remarkably like the major questions doctrine’s rule that, when executive branch officials claim Congress has granted them an extraordinary power, they must identify clear statutory authority for it. See ante, at 13 (reciting the rule).

Take some examples. The concurrence points to the “unparalleled authority” the President asserts “to impose a tariff of any amount, for any time, on only his own say-so.” Post, at 6. In other words, the President claims an “[e]xtraordinary” power. West Virginia, 597 U. S., at 723 (majority opinion). The concurrence observes that no “President until now understood IEEPA to authorize imposing tariffs.” Post, at 6. In other words, the power is an “unher-alded” one. West Virginia, 597 U. S., at 722 (internal quotation marks omitted). Along the way, the concurrence also adds “a modicum of common sense about how Congress typically delegates” and “consideration of whether Congress ever has before, or likely would, delegate the power the Executive asserts.” Post, at 2 (internal quotation marks omitted). In other words, the statutory text must be read in light of “separation of powers principles.” West Virginia, 597 U. S., at 723.

Having borrowed all those concepts from the major questions doctrine, the concurrence then turns to the key statutory terms before us—“regulate . . . importation”—and observes that they “sa[y] nothing” (at least not expressly) “about imposing tariffs.” Post, at 3. And why is that fatal to the President’s case? Because the President is attempting to exercise the “‘core congressional power’” over taxes and tariffs, a power Article I of the Constitution vests in Congress alone. Post, at 5 (quoting ante, at 8); see also West Virginia, 597 U. S., at 737 (GORSUCH, J., concurring) (ex-plaining that the major questions doctrine “protect[s] the Constitution’s separation of powers,” and particularly Arti-cle I, which vests “all federal legislative . . . [p]owers in . . . Congress” (internal quotation marks and alteration omitted)).

If my colleagues all but apply the major questions doc-trine today, maybe they are simply recognizing what they have in other separation of powers cases involving the delegation of legislative power: that “[t]he guidance needed is greater” when the executive branch seeks to take “action[s][that] will affect the entire national economy. ”FCC v. Consumers’ Research, 606 U. S. 656, 673 (2025) (opinion for the Court by KAGAN, J.) (internal quotation marks omitted). Or maybe my colleagues believe the power the President asserts here outstrips even those powers executive officials asserted in our past major questions cases. But whatever the case, my concurring colleagues’ course today suggests that skeptics owe the major questions doctrine a second look.

All of which leads me to take up the challenges they have posed to it in the past. Is the doctrine really some “special cano[n]” that has only recently “magically appear[ed]”? West Virginia, 597 U. S., at 779 (KAGAN, J., dissenting). And is it really grounded in an “anti-administrative-state stance” that prevents Congress from using executive branch officials to perform “important work”? Id., at 780.

The major questions doctrine teaches that, to sustain a claim that Congress has granted them an extraordinary power, executive officials must identify clear authority for that power. Far from a novelty, much the same principle has long applied to those who claim extraordinary delegated authority, whether in private or public law.

Examples stretch across many fields. Consider first the common law of corporations. In early modern England, cor-porations could be formed only with “an explicit, ex ante and direct authorization.” R. Harris, Industrializing Eng-lish Law: Entrepreneurship and Business Organization, 1720–1844, p. 17 (2000). That authorization could be given by the Crown, an Act of Parliament, or a combination of the two. Ibid.; see also id., at 19. Some of these corporations exercised regulatory functions not unlike those performed by modern administrative agencies. M. Bilder, The Corpo-rate Origins of Judicial Review, 116 Yale L. J. 502, 516–517, 519–520 (2006). Indeed, the “[i]nitial settlements in Virginia and Massachusetts Bay, among others, were struc-tured as corporations.” Id., at 535.

English law treated these corporations as having author-ity to issue bylaws. But that authority was subject to re-strictions, one of which was that corporations could not reg-ulate on major subjects without express authorization. Take Kirk v. Nowill, 1 T. R. 118, 99 Eng. Rep. 1006 (K. B. 1786). That case involved the Company of Cutlers, a corpo-ration for makers of knives and other cutlery. See id., at 118–119, 99 Eng. Rep., at 1006. An Act of Parliament gave the company broad authority to regulate its members. Id., at 118–121, 99 Eng. Rep., at 1006–1007. The company used that authority to adopt a bylaw allowing its officials to enter its members’ “workshops and warehouses” and search for “deceitful and unworkmanly” cutlery. Id., at 121–122, 99 Eng. Rep., at 1007. After the company seized supposedly unworkmanly forks, the aggrieved owner challenged the company’s actions in court, arguing that the bylaw under which it acted was “bad in point of law” because the power to incur a forfeiture was not “expressly given to [the com-pany] by Act of Parliament.” Id., at 118, 122–123, 99 Eng. Rep., at 1008. Applying a clear-statement rule, the King’s Bench declared the bylaw, and therefore the seizure, un-lawful. Lord Mansfield explained that the “power of mak-ing bye-laws to incur a forfeiture” was an “extraordinary power” over and above the default powers of corporations “created by charter.” Id., at 124, 99 Eng. Rep., at 1009. For this reason, the power needed to be “expressly given” by the company’s progenitor, Parliament. Ibid. Since no such power had been clearly conferred, the seizure was unlawful. See ibid.

The same principle applied in American law. In In re Election of Directors of Long Island R. Co., 19 Wend. 37, 40 (N. Y. Sup. Ct. 1837), a New York court addressed a case involving 2,700 shares of stock in the Long Island Railroad Company that the company had declared forfeited. Ibid. All agreed that the company had broad power to regulate its shares. See id., at 41–42. Still, the court called the for-feiture an “extraordinary penalty,” and held that no such power had been “expressly conferred” on the corporation by its charter. Ibid. In fact, the court borrowed the clear-statement rule from Nowill: If “extraordinary authority . . . is intended to be given, it must be by express words to that effect.” Id., at 43 (describing Nowill in detail).

The court in Ex parte Burnett, 30 Ala. 461 (1857), pro-ceeded similarly. That case involved the incorporated town of Cahaba, Alabama. See id., at 464. The town set the price of a liquor license at $1,000, fined James Burnett for failing to obtain one, and eventually imprisoned him for not paying the fine. See ibid. Burnett sought a writ of habeas corpus and argued that Cahaba had acted beyond the scope of its corporate authority. Ibid.

Without a clear-statement rule, Burnett’s argument would have stood little chance. That’s because the town’s charter granted it the authority “to make and establish all such rules, by-laws, and ordinances, respecting the streets, markets, buildings, . . . and police of said town, that shall appear to them requisite and necessary for the security, welfare, and convenience of said town, or for preserving health, peace, order, and good government within the same.” Id., at 467 (internal quotation marks omitted). The charter even specifically gave the town the “privileg[e] of granting licenses for retailing of spirituous and other liq-uors.” Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted). Semanti-cally, the town’s power was broad indeed and encompassed liquor licensing. But the court sided with Burnett anyway. Reasoning that the town’s exorbitant licensing fee effec-tively banned the sale of liquor, the court held that Cahaba did not enjoy such extraordinary “prohibitory” power be-cause it was “not authorized by any express grant of power” in the town’s charter. Id., at 469; see also id., at 466.

These cases are not outliers. Treatises confirm that the extraordinary power principle was fundamental to munici-pal corporations. A statute could “not by implication invest [a] body with any extraordinary authority.” J. Willcock, The Law of Municipal Corporations ¶226, p. 99 (1827). Ex-traordinary powers required “express words to that effect.” Ibid. And “[a]ny fair, reasonable doubt concerning the ex-istence of power [was] resolved by the courts against the corporation, and the power [was] denied.” 1 J. Dillon, Com-mentaries on the Law of Municipal Corporations 145 (4th ed. 1890).

The takeaway is simple enough. Early corporations often functioned much like today’s executive branch, exercising delegated regulatory authority. And, when interpreting the scope of that authority, the common law had a clear-state-ment rule that looked strikingly like the major questions doctrine.

Historically, a similar precept applied in agency law. As the leading early American treatise put it, instruments con-ferring powers of attorney were “ordinarily subjected to a strict interpretation.” J. Story, Commentaries on the Law of Agency 80–81 (2d ed. 1844). So, for example, in Attwood v. Munnings, 7 Barn. & Cress. 278, 108 Eng. Rep. 727 (K. B. 1827), a principal had delegated broad power to an agent to act “generally for him and in his name,” including in all things “as should be requisite, expedient, and advisable to be done in . . . his affairs and concerns, and as he might or could do if personally acting therein.” Id., at 279–280, 108 Eng. Rep., at 728 (internal quotation marks omitted). The agent then accepted certain debts on behalf of the principal. Id., at 280, 108 Eng. Rep., at 728. The question for the court was whether this action was within the scope of the agent’s authority. Id., at 281, 108 Eng. Rep., at 728. The court said no. Powers of attorney are “instruments to be construed strictly.” Id., at 283, 108 Eng. Rep., at 729. And the power of attorney contained “no express power” to accept debts, so no such power had been given. Ibid.

Other examples abound. A power to sell casks of whiskey did not include the “unusual and extraordinary” power to offer a warranty against future seizures of the casks, unless granted by “express authority.” Palmer v. Hatch, 46 Mo. 585, 587 (1870). Under a power of attorney, authority to enter contracts for a principal was subject to “strict inter-pretation” and generally did not authorize “contracts of an extraordinary character” outside those “connected with [the principal’s] ordinary business.” Reynolds v. Rowley, 4 La. Ann. 396, 398–399 (1849). And a power to manage a mine did not authorize an agent to borrow money for the mine’s operations on the principal’s credit because there was no “express authority” for such a departure from the “usual manner” of running a mine. Hawtayne v. Bourne, 7 M. & W. 595, 599, 151 Eng. Rep. 905, 906 (Ex. 1841). This was true even “in cases of necessity,” id., at 599, 151 Eng. Rep., at 907, where the manager borrowed funds to address an “emergency suddenly arising,” id., at 600, 151 Eng. Rep., at 907.

Much the same principle applied to executive officials. Often, “[t]he legality of an executive action depended on the relationship between the size of the asserted power and the clarity of the underlying legal authority.” T. Arvind & C. Burset, Partisan Legal Traditions in the Age of Camden and Mansfield, 44 Oxford J. Legal Studies 376, 388 (2024). Entick v. Carrington, 19 How. St. Tr. 1029 (C. P. 1765), of-fers an illustration. There, as part of an investigation for seditious libel, the English Secretary of State claimed au-thority to issue a warrant for the seizure of an author’s pa-pers. Lord Camden declared the seizure unlawful, reason-ing that power asserted by the executive “ought to be as clear as it is extensive.” T. Arvind & C. Burset, A New Re-port of Entick v. Carrington (1765), 110 Ky. L. J. 265, 324 (2022) (Arvind & Burset). Or, as another reporter described Camden’s decision, “one should naturally expect that the law to warrant [the exercise of power] should be clear in proportion as the power is exorbitant.” 19 How. St. Tr., at 1065–1066. The seizure represented an extraordinary ex-ercise of power, Lord Camden found, and no legal authority clearly authorized it. See Arvind & Burset 324. Accord-ingly, the warrant was unlawful and the seizure could not stand. Id., at 332.

Perhaps unsurprisingly given this history, American courts applied the extraordinary power principle when Congress and the States started delegating new regulatory powers to executive agencies in the late 19th century. Take railroad commissions. After the Civil War, governments worried about the increasing power of railroad companies responded by creating new agencies and imbuing them with broad regulatory authority. These bodies were among the first modern administrative agencies. See West Virginia, 597 U. S., at 740 (GORSUCH, J., concurring). And when they claimed some extraordinary delegated power, both state and federal courts enforced a clear-statement rule. See, e.g., Siler v. Louisville & Nashville R. Co., 213 U. S. 175, 193–194 (1909) (declaring, in the course of interpreting a state statute, that an “enormous power” “must be conferred in plain language” “free from doubt”); Board of R. Comm’rs of Ore. v. Oregon R. & Navigation Co., 17 Ore. 65, 77, 19 P. 702, 707–708 (1888) (When an agency exercises “powers delegated to [it] by the legislature” to carry out “important functions,” the text must “define and specify the authority given it so clearly that no doubt can reasonably arise”); ICC v. Cincinnati, N. O. & T. P. R. Co., 167 U. S. 479, 505 (1897)(holding a delegation of legislative power of “supreme delicacy and importance” must be “clear and direct”); Gulf & Ship Island R. Co. v. Railroad Comm’n, 94 Miss. 124, 134–135, 49 So. 118 (1908) (“It is universally held that a railroad commission . . . must be able to point to its grant of power . . . in clear and express terms, and nothing will be had by inference”).

The railroad commissions may have been the first, but they were not the last. Whether executive officials claimed the power to criminally punish noncompliance with regula-tions, force employers to retain employees regardless of their unlawful conduct, or regulate intrastate candy sales, this Court held them to much the same standard. Because their claimed powers were so substantial, executive officials had to identify a “distinc[t]” authority for them, United States v. Eaton, 144 U. S. 677, 688 (1892), a “clear legislative basis,” United States v. George, 228 U. S. 14, 22 (1913), a “definite and unmistakable expression,” NLRB v. Fansteel Metallurgical Corp., 306 U. S. 240, 255 (1939), or a “clea[r] mandate,” FTC v. Bunte Brothers, Inc., 312 U. S. 349, 351, 355 (1941). Cf. Industrial Union Dept., AFL–CIO v. American Petroleum Institute, 448 U. S. 607, 645 (1980)(plurality opinion) (“In the absence of a clear mandate . . . it is unreasonable to assume that Congress intended to give the Secretary [of Labor] the unprecedented power over American industry” he claimed).

It is no mystery why the Court proceeded this way when interpreting legislative directions to the executive branch. Article I of the Constitution vests all federal legislative power in Congress, and Article II charges the executive branch with seeing that Congress’s laws are faithfully executed. In a very real sense, then, when it comes to legisla-tive power, Congress is the principal and executive officials are the agents. See generally G. Lawson & G. Seidman, “A Great Power of Attorney”: Understanding the Fiduciary Constitution (2017).

So what is the basis for the charge that the major ques-tions doctrine represents some “magica[l]” innovation? See West Virginia, 597 U. S., at 779 (KAGAN, J., dissenting). Part of the answer may have to do with the fact that, in the latter half of the 20th century, this Court began experi-menting with a very different approach. The Court pushed aside its long-held skepticism of claims to extraordinary delegated powers and began affirmatively encouraging them. Chevron deference is just one example of this phenomenon, though a stark one. See Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837 (1984). That case established a presumption that was nearly the opposite of the major questions doctrine: When Congress failed to speak clearly, courts put a thumb on the scale in favor of delegated power. Id., at 843–844. Given that development, the longstanding principles animating the major questions doctrine may have receded from view for a time. After all, the two doctrines often applied in the same places and counseled opposite results. But with Chevron gone, so is the conflict. This Court’s application of the major questions doctrine is not invention so much as return to form.

Now turn to my concurring colleagues’ other charge: that the major questions doctrine is premised on an “anti-admin-istrative-state stance.” West Virginia, 597 U. S., at 780 (KAGAN, J., dissenting). It is important, they argue, to al-low Congress to delegate expansive powers. Members of Congress unfortunately “often don’t know enough—and know they don’t know enough—to regulate sensibly on an issue.” Id., at 781. Nor can Congress easily “anticipate changing circumstances.” Ibid. For these reasons, Mem-bers of Congress must rely on more adept and less con-strained “people . . . found in agencies.” Ibid. Indeed, my colleagues say, “administrative delegations . . . have helped to build a modern Nation.” Id., at 782. And the major ques-tions doctrine, they worry, could jeopardize all that “aston-ish[ing] . . . progress.” Ibid.

This policy complaint, of course, is no reason to disregard our precedents or longstanding legal principles. But, even taken on its own terms, it is a bit perplexing. The major questions doctrine is not “anti-administrative state.” It is pro-Congress. Common-law courts understood that few written instruments can anticipate every eventuality, and that principals sometimes draft broad delegation language to account for this. At the same time, courts appreciated the corresponding risk that delegees could easily exploit loose language in their commissions for their own benefit and to the detriment of those they purported to serve. So common-law courts often strictly construed delegated powers, not because they were anti-delegee, but because they were pro-principal.

The major questions doctrine performs a similar function. Article I vests all federal legislative power in Congress. But like any written instrument, federal legislation cannot anticipate every eventuality, a point my concurring colleagues have observed in the past. Id., at 781–782. And highly re-sourceful members of the executive branch have strong incentives to exploit any doubt in Congress’s past work to as-sume new power for themselves. The major questions doctrine helps prevent that kind of exploitation. Our founders understood that men are not angels, and we disregard that insight at our peril when we allow the few (or the one) to aggrandize their power based on loose or uncertain authority. We delude ourselves, too, if we think that power will accumulate safely and only in the hands of dispassionate “people . . . found in agencies.” Id., at 781. Even if unelected agency officials were uniquely immune to the desire for more power (an unserious assumption), they report to elected Presidents who can claim no such modesty. See My-ers v. United States, 272 U. S. 52 (1926).

Another feature of our separation of powers makes the major questions doctrine especially salient. When a private agent oversteps, a principal may fix that problem prospec-tively by withdrawing the agent’s authority. Under our Constitution, the remedy is not so simple. Once this Court reads a doubtful statute as granting the executive branch a given power, that power may prove almost impossible for Congress to retrieve. Any President keen on his own au-thority (and, again, what President isn’t?) will have a strong incentive to veto legislation aimed at returning the power to Congress. Perhaps Congress can use other tools, including its appropriation authority, to influence how the President exercises his new power. Maybe Congress can sometimes even leverage those tools to induce the President to withhold a veto. But retrieving a lost power is no easy business in our constitutional order. And without doctrines like major questions, our system of separated powers and checks-and-balances threatens to give way to the continual and permanent accretion of power in the hands of one man. That is no recipe for a republic.

This case offers an example of the problem. Article I grants Congress, not the President, the power to impose tariffs. Still, the President claims, Congress passed that power on to him in IEEPA, permitting him to impose tariffs on nearly any goods he wishes, in any amount he wishes, based on emergencies he himself has declared. He insists, as well, that his emergency declarations are unreviewable. A ruling for him here, the President acknowledges, would afford future Presidents the same latitude he asserts for himself. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 69. So another President might impose tariffs on gas-powered automobiles to re-spond to climate change. Ibid. Or, really, on virtually any imports for any emergency any President might perceive. And all of these emergency declarations would be unreview-able. Just ask yourself: What President would willingly give up that kind of power?

I recognize the concerns about the major questions doc-trine. But it is not so novel as some have supposed. And it serves Article I values we all share. My concurring col-leagues all but endorse it today. I hope past skeptics will give it another look.

Turn now to the second camp. If some have criticized the major questions doctrine, others have responded by seeking to soften its blow. Though joining today’s principal opinion holding that “clear” statutory authority is required to sus-tain the exercise of an “extraordinary” power, ante, at 13, 20, JUSTICE BARRETT has suggested that the major ques-tions doctrine might be reconceived. On her view, the doc-trine need not be understood as a “substantive canon designed to enforce Article I’s Vesting Clause”—a “valu[e] external to a statute.” Nebraska, 600 U. S., at 508, 510 (concurring opinion). Instead, the doctrine might be thought of as a “commonsense principl[e] of communica-tion” that counsels “skepticism” when executive officials claim extraordinary powers derived from Congress. Id., at 514, 516; see also post, at 1–4 (concurring opinion).

It is a thoughtful effort, but I harbor doubts. For one thing, there is no need to reconceive our doctrine; past critics all but apply the doctrine today and their previous criticisms fall flat. See Part I, supra. For another, this gloss on our major questions doctrine presents problems. Commonsense principles of communication do not explain many of our major questions cases—this one included. And if common sense really does go so far as to embrace a rule counseling “skepticism” of claims by executive officials that Congress has granted them extraordinary powers, that is common sense in name only. The reason for such skepticism must be Article I, a “substantive” source “external” to any statute.

Introducing her view that “commonsense principles of communication” can sometimes help resolve disputes over the meaning of statutory terms, JUSTICE BARRETT points to an old chestnut. Nebraska, 600 U. S., at 512, 514 (concurring opinion). Suppose a legislature used the phrase “who-ever drew blood in the streets” in a criminal statute impos-ing punishment. As a matter of “common sense,” JUSTICE BARRETT says, it would “‘g[o] without saying’” that the law doesn’t apply to a surgeon accessing a patient’s vein to save his life. Ibid. That is because the phrase “drew blood” is susceptible to two conventional idiomatic meanings: one “applicable to violent encounters with man or beast” and the other “to medical procedures,” A. Scalia & B. Garner, Reading Law 357 (2012) (Scalia & Garner). And any ordinary person faced with that phrase in a penal law would find it obvious which meaning applies. Ibid.; see also Ne-braska, 600 U. S., at 512 (BARRETT, J., concurring).

The difficulty is, our major questions cases are different. Often, little about them “‘goes without saying.’” Ibid. Take FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 529 U. S. 120 (2000). There, the question was whether the FDA could regulate tobacco products. Id., at 125. Looking only to com-mon sense, the answer would have been yes. Congress au-thorized the FDA to regulate “drugs,” which Congress de-fined expressly and broadly as “‘articles (other than food) intended to affect the structure or any function of the body.’” Id., at 126. As a matter of common sense, nicotine qualifies as a “drug” based on this statutory definition, as it might even as a matter of everyday speech. West Virginia, 597 U. S., at 721–722 (noting the “colorable textual basis” for the executive branch’s interpretation in Brown & Wil-liamson). Still, we held the FDA could not regulate tobacco products. Brown & Williamson, 529 U. S., at 159–160.

Other cases follow suit. We have ruled that the term “air pollutant” does not include greenhouse gases, even though greenhouse gases pollute the air. Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA, 573 U. S. 302, 316, 323–324 (2014). We have held that the phrase “‘[r]egulations . . . necessary to pre-vent the . . . spread of communicable diseases’” does not in-clude eviction moratoriums, even without questioning that eviction moratoriums were necessary to prevent the spread of COVID–19, a communicable disease. Alabama Assn. of Realtors, 594 U. S., at 761, 764. And we have said that clos-ing coal power plants is not the “‘best system of emission reduction,’” even while acknowledging that closing them would reduce emissions. West Virginia, 597 U. S., at 721, 732–735.

None of these cases can be readily explained by “commonsense principles of communication.” Nebraska, 600 U. S., at 514 (BARRETT, J., concurring). None involved a phrase like “drew blood” susceptible to two conventional idiomatic meanings, one of which any English speaker faced with the law at issue might quickly rule out. Quite the opposite; in each case the agency had a strong argument that the statutory language, commonsensically read, granted the power it claimed. Meanwhile, all our major questions cases can be easily explained by reference to a rule requiring the executive branch to identify clear statutory author-ity when it claims Congress has granted it an extraordinary power. And that is a “dice-loading” rule, plain and simple, one designed to protect Article I, a “[s]ubstantive . . . valu[e] external” to the statutory terms at hand. Id., at 508.

Common sense not only fails to explain many of our major questions cases. It doesn’t explain even some of the cases JUSTICE BARRETT has held up as examples of commonsense cases. In Bond v. United States, 572 U. S. 844 (2014), for example, the Court confronted a statute that defined “chemical weapon” to include “‘any chemical which through its chemical action on life processes can cause death, tem-porary incapacitation or permanent harm to humans or an-imals.’” Id., at 851; see also Nebraska, 600 U. S., at 512– 513 (BARRETT, J., concurring) (discussing Bond). Despite that broad definition, the Court held that “an arsenic-based compound” didn’t fit the bill. Bond, 572 U. S., at 852, 866. To reach that result, we did not use common sense alone. How could we have? It hardly goes without saying that ar-senic doesn’t qualify as a “chemical” which can cause “‘per-manent harm to humans or animals.’” Id., at 851; see also id., at 867 (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment) (calling it “beyond doubt” that the ordinary meaning of the relevant statutory terms embraced the chemicals at issue). Instead, we relied on a clear-statement rule grounded in the sub-stance of the Constitution—namely, the federalism canon. Id., at 860 (majority opinion) (“[W]e can insist on a clear indication that Congress meant to reach purely local crimes, before interpreting the statute’s expansive language in a way that intrudes on the police power of the States”). So Bond may well be like our major questions cases, but that is only because it applied a clear-statement rule grounded in another substantive feature of the Constitution.

Consider as well the babysitter hypothetical JUSTICE BARRETT has posed. Imagine a parent of young children who hands a babysitter a credit card and says, “‘[m]ake sure the kids have fun.’” Nebraska, 600 U. S., at 513 (con-curring opinion). Now suppose the babysitter takes the kids on a road trip to an amusement park, “where they spend two days on rollercoasters and one night in a hotel.” Ibid. “Was the babysitter’s trip consistent with the parent’s instruction?” Ibid. JUSTICE BARRETT believes the answer is likely “no” as a matter of common sense. See id., at 513– 514.

Really, though, unless one is to believe children do not “have fun” on rollercoasters and at hotels, the babysitter hypothetical can be explained only with reference to some “external” and “substantive” norm. Id., at 508, 513. And, in fact, just such a norm is baked into the babysitter hypo-thetical—one we encountered in Part I–B, supra. The babysitter is exercising authority the parents have dele-gated to her. She is acting as their agent. As a result, one might expect a clear statement from the parents before the babysitter may do something extraordinary, like take the kids on a road trip.

This substantive norm about delegated powers not only lurks beneath the surface of the babysitter hypothetical, it “‘loads the dice’” against her. Nebraska, 600 U. S., at 510 (BARRETT, J., concurring). Doubtless, she would see it that way. The babysitter would argue that a trip to an amuse-ment park is “fun.” And she would be right under a com-monsense understanding of the word. But because the babysitter is exercising delegated authority, she cannot exercise such an extraordinary power without clear authorization for it.

Notice, too, the same outcome is no longer guaranteed when we remove the delegated power feature. If one parent leaves the children with the other parent, the trip to the amusement park might well be fine. No other contextual clues are needed. See id., at 516 (agreeing with this). So if the answer to the babysitter hypothetical seems a matter of common sense to many Americans, that is only because the substantive norms associated with parental delegations to babysitter agents are so deeply rooted in our society. Say the same instruction were given to a babysitter in a com-munity where children are raised collectively, like a kib-butz. Same answer? Hardly obvious.1

(1 Today, JUSTICE BARRETT protests that the foregoing discussion “takes down a straw man.” Post, at 1 (concurring opinion). But it was JUSTICE BARRETT who previously wrote that the major questions doctrine “grows out of . . . commonsense principles of communication.” Biden v. Nebraska, 600 U. S. 477, 514 (2023) (same). And it was JUSTICE BARRETT who used the various illustrations recounted above to suggest that our major questions decisions can be explained by reference to the kind of “common sense . . . that ‘goes without saying.’ ” Id., at 512. If JUSTICE BARRETT now means to put all that to the flame, the major questions doctrine is better for it.)

To be sure, in places JUSTICE BARRETT concedes that her gloss on the major questions doctrine requires resort to something more than “common sense” instincts about what would “‘g[o] without saying’” to an ordinary English speaker. Nebraska, 600 U. S., at 512 (concurring opinion); see also post, at 2. Sometimes, she suggests, common sense doesn’t just help illuminate the “most natural” meaning of an idiomatic term like “drew blood” based on its presence in a penal law. 600 U. S., at 508. Sometimes, she says, “commonsense principles of communication” go much further. Id., at 514. So much so that they wind up dictating a rule counseling “skepticism” of executive claims to extraordinary delegated powers. Id., at 516. Why? Because, JUSTICE BARRETT says, a “reasonable observer” consults “our constitutional structure.” Id., at 515, 520. But if that’s true, this version of common sense does require us to account for “values” entirely “external to a statute,” including specifically the “substan[ce]” of Article I. Id., at 508. And in so doing, this expanded version of common sense just becomes the substantive major questions doctrine by another name.

Today’s decision illustrates the point. The principal opin-ion gestures at “common sense.” Ante, at 8. But through-out, this “common sense” is linked to “‘constitutional struc-ture’” and “‘separation of powers principles.’” Ibid. The principal opinion begins with the Constitution, observing that Article I vests the tariff power in Congress, not the ex-ecutive branch. Ante, at 5–6. The principal opinion re-counts the President’s claim that Congress has “delegated” an “extraordinary” amount of its tariff power to him in IEEPA. Ante, at 8–9. And from there, the principal opinion proceeds to apply a clear-statement rule. It acknowledges that the ordinary meaning of the key statutory term in IEEPA—the word “regulate”—is capacious, so much so that it could be understood to “captur[e] much of what a govern-ment does.” Ante, at 14. Still, the principal opinion rea-sons, that is not enough to sustain the President’s claim be-cause the statute does not “clear[ly]” grant him the “extraordinary” delegated power he seeks. Ante, at 13, 20. When it comes down to it, common sense serves as little more than a segue to Article I’s Vesting Clause.

That is as it must be. The statutory terms contain no ambiguity we could use (or need) “commonsense principles of communication” to resolve. Nebraska, 600 U. S., at 514 (BARRETT, J., concurring). This case is nothing like the “‘drew blood’” illustration, where it might “‘g[o] without saying’” that any ordinary person would immediately understand which of two idiomatic meanings a penal statute employed. Id., at 512. Indeed, today’s principal opinion does not even “attempt to set forth the metes and bounds” of IEEPA’s key phrase “‘regulate . . . importation,’” ante, at 16, much less find the “best” or “most natural” meaning of those words, Nebraska, 600 U. S., at 508, 521 (BARRETT, J., concurring); post, at 1. Instead, we need go no further than to recognize that IEEPA fails to “clear[ly]” authorize tariffs. Ante, at 13, 20. And the only reason we can stop there is because Article I—a “[s]ubstantive . . . valu[e] external to a statute,” 600 U. S., at 508 (BARRETT, J., concurring)—imposes a clear-statement rule when executive officials claim Congress has afforded them an extraordinary authority.

There’s another problem too. The equivocation on whether “commonsense principles of communication” in-clude only those things that might “go without saying,” or also include “external” and “substantive” Article I “values,” leads to a further equivocation on how much “skepticism” common sense might dictate when assessing an executive official’s claim to an extraordinary delegated power. Com-mon sense, we are told, does not impose a “‘clarity tax,’” but it does add an “expectation of clarity.” Id., at 508, 514. Common sense does not “‘loa[d] the dice,’” but it does coun-sel “skepticism.” Id., at 510–511, 516. Common sense means never “forgo[ing] the most natural reading of a stat-ute,” post, at 3, but it always means “expect[ing that] Con-gress [will] make the big-time policy calls,” post, at 2 (inter-nal quotation marks omitted). I am uncertain what to make of this, except that it seems to toggle between a clear-state-ment rule and nothing at all. 2

(2. To the extent JUSTICE BARRETT suggests any skepticism “com-monsense principles of communication” might (or might not) advise de-rives from a “ ‘practical understanding of legislative intent,’ ” rather than “external” and “substantive” Article I “values,” that poses still further (and familiar) problems. Nebraska, 600 U. S., at 508, 515 (concurring opinion) (quoting West Virginia v. EPA, 597 U. S. 697, 723 (2022)). Down that road lie all the pitfalls associated with reliance on legislative his- tory and those associated with conflating unenacted legislative intent with the law. Scalia & Garner 397; post, p. 1 (JACKSON, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). Similar problems attend the notion that the appropriate degree of skepticism due a delegation might turn on what people “expect.” Nebraska, 600 U. S., at 514, 520 (BARRETT, J., con-curring); see also post, at 2 (same). JUSTICE BARRETT has offered no evi-dence about what people “expect” when confronted with different con-gressional delegations. And to the extent she believes their “expectations” would reflect an appropriate consideration of the whole “ ‘corpus juris,’ including the Constitution,” post, at 2, n. 1, that just cir-cles us right back to the “external” and “substantive” Article I “values” she strives so hard to sideline, see Nebraska, 600 U. S., at 508 (BARRETT, J., concurring).

I am certain of one thing: Our cases hold a clear statement is required to support a claim to an extraordinary del-egated power. We required Congress to “speak clearly” in Utility Air, 573 U. S., at 324. We demanded “clear congressional authorization” in NFIB, 595 U. S., at 118. We did the same in Nebraska, 600 U. S., at 506, and in West Virginia, 597 U. S., at 732, and we do so again today, ante, at 13. Nor do I see cause for being quite so reluctant about acknowledging this. The common law recognized many clear-state- ment rules. See, e.g., Part I–B, supra. Our own cases have applied a host of Constitution-enforcing clear-statement rules as well. We just encountered the federalism clear- statement rule in Bond. Add to the list clear-statement rules against laws that might apply retroactively, waive or abrogate sovereign immunity, or create enforceable rights under the Taxing Clause—to name just a few. See, e.g., Landgraf v. USI Film Products, 511 U. S. 244, 265–268 (1994); Financial Oversight and Management Bd. for P. R. v. Centro De Periodismo Investigativo, Inc., 598 U. S. 339, 346–347 (2023); Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, 606 U. S. 357, 383–384, n. 8 (2025). Maybe all these rules could be recast as “common sense”—at least if com mon sense means taking account of the “external” and “substantive” “values” found in “our constitutional struc-ture.” Nebraska, 600 U. S., at 508, 515 (BARRETT, J., con-curring). But whatever the label, it hardly requires some “judicial flex,” post, at 4, to recognize that the “external” constitutional “values” at stake in our major questions cases are no less weighty than those at play in other set-tings where we routinely apply a clear-statement rule. 3

(3 Notably, past critics of the major questions doctrine have not hesi-tated to apply many of these clear-statement rules. See Financial Over-sight and Management Bd. for P. R. v. Centro De Periodismo Investiga-tivo, Inc., 598 U. S. 339, 346–347 (2023) (opinion for the Court by KAGAN, J.); Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, 603 U. S. 369, 455–456, n. 1 (2024) (KAGAN, J., dissenting) (collecting examples); West Virginia, 597 U. S., at 751, n. 7 (GORSUCH, J., concurring) (same). Nor have they hesi-tated to adopt and apply other clear-statement rules with far less grounding in the Constitution than the major questions doctrine. See, e.g., Bowe v. United States, 607 U. S. ___, ___–___ (2026) (slip op., at 9–10); id., at ___–___ (GORSUCH, J., dissenting) (slip op., at 12–15); Boechler v. Commissioner, 596 U. S. 199, 208 (2022).)

III

That brings us to the third camp. My dissenting col-leagues have defended the major questions doctrine in the past, and they do so again today. Post, at 31–33 (opinion of KAVANAUGH, J.). They agree that the doctrine is grounded in the Constitution. Post, at 32. They agree that the doc-trine requires us to deviate from “‘routine’” statutory inter-pretation principles and instead place a “thumb on the scale,” one requiring executive officials to identify “‘clear’” congressional authorization when they seek to exercise some “major” power. Post, at 33. But, my colleagues say, IEEPA provides the clear statement needed to sustain the President’s tariffs. Post, at 38–45. Alternatively, they sub-mit, we shouldn’t apply the major questions doctrine to any statute, like IEEPA, that implicates “foreign affairs.” Post, at 45–49. And this exception, they add, is particularly warranted here because Congress has historically granted the President large discretion in setting tariffs. Post, at 49–53. Once again, the points are thoughtful and merit careful consideration.

My dissenting colleagues begin by taking the major ques-tions doctrine as they find it. They accept that the Presi-dent’s challenged actions are “of major economic and politi-cal significance.” Post, at 33. They accept as well that he must identify “clear” congressional authorization to sustain those actions. Ibid. Still, the dissent maintains, IEEPA clearly grants the President the tariff power he asserts.

To arrive at that conclusion, the dissent consults four clues we have sometimes employed in our major questions cases to help assess whether a statute clearly authorizes an asserted power. See West Virginia, 597 U. S., at 746 (GORSUCH, J., concurring). The dissent formulates these clues largely as I would. See post, at 35–38. But, to my eyes, the dissent engages in a little grade inflation when applying them.

First, is the President seeking to exercise an “unher-alded” or “newfound” power based on a “long-extant” stat-ute? Post, at 39 (internal quotation marks omitted). The dissent insists that is not the case here because President Nixon imposed a 10 percent tariff on most imports in 1971, and then defended that action in lower courts under a predecessor to IEEPA, the Trading with the Enemy Act (TWEA). Ibid. But the words “regulate . . . importation” were added to TWEA in 1941. §301(1)(B), 55 Stat. 839. Congress used the same language in IEEPA in 1977. §203(a)(1)(B), 91 Stat. 1626. And in the 85 years of TWEA’s existence with that language (and the 49 years of IEEPA’s), that is the only time either statute has been invoked to impose tariffs. Ante, at 10–11, 17–18. A single time, and one never tested in this Court. Nor are these statutes seldom used. “Each year since 1990, Presidents have issued roughly 4.5 executive orders . . . and declared 1.5 new na-tional emergencies citing IEEPA.” Congressional Research Service, The International Emergency Economics Powers Act: Origins, Evolution, and Use 20 (Sept. 1, 2025). That is pretty strong evidence the President here seeks to “deploy an old statute” in a novel way. West Virginia, 597 U. S., at 747 (GORSUCH, J., concurring).

Second, how has the executive branch interpreted IEEPA in the past? Post, at 40–41. The dissent says Presidents have long understood IEEPA to permit them to impose tar-iffs. Ibid. But for support, the dissent again relies on iso-lated evidence about other statutes. It points to the mone-tary exactions President Ford ordered under the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. Post, at 17, 40. And, once more, it points to President Nixon’s invocation of TWEA to support his 1971 tariffs during lower court proceedings (though the dissent brushes aside the fact that President Nixon initially rejected the idea of relying on TWEA, see Brief for Carla Hills et al. as Amici Curiae 12–14). Whatever one makes of this history, it hardly reveals the kind of contemporaneous and consistent executive interpretation that might advance the dissent’s cause. See West Virginia, 597 U. S., at 747 (GORSUCH, J., concurring). To the contrary, the fact that no President until now has invoked IEEPA to impose a duty—even one percent on one product from one country—is tell-ing. Id., at 748.

Third, is there a “mismatch” between the action the exec-utive official seeks to take and his expertise? Post, at 41. On this one, I agree with the dissent. If tariffs fall in any executive official’s “wheelhouse” (and not Congress’s), it’s the President’s. Ibid.; see also supra, at 6.

Fourth, is the President “relying on oblique, elliptical, or cryptic language”? Post, at 41–42. The dissent says no be-cause “[t]his case does not involve elephants in mouse-holes.” Post, at 41 (internal quotation marks omitted). Put another way, the dissent insists, the provisions of IEEPA before us are not “ancillary” ones, but are designed to con-vey significant powers. Post, at 43 (internal quotation marks omitted). It’s a fair enough point as far as it goes. But our cases ask not just whether a provision is a “mouse-hole” or “ancillary.” They also caution against reading ex-traordinary powers into “broad or general” statutory lan-guage. West Virginia, 597 U. S., at 746 (GORSUCH, J., concurring) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Sossamon v. Texas, 563 U. S. 277, 291 (2011) (“[C]lear statement rules ensure Congress does not, by broad or gen-eral language, legislate on a sensitive topic inadvertently or without due deliberation” (internal quotation marks omit-ted)). Indeed, and as we have seen, many of our major ques-tions cases have found broad or general terms in significant statutes insufficient to support a claim to an extraordinary or unusual power. See Part I–A, supra. And here, the word “regulate” is broad as can be. So broad that it could be read to “captur[e] much of what a government does.” Ante, at 14.

As I see it, then, three of the four clues the dissent relies on cut against it. It is important to add, as well, that as helpful as these clues can be in helping courts spot when a claimed power is not supported by clear statutory authority, they do not represent some exhaustive checklist, nor does satisfying one guarantee a claim will succeed. So, for ex-ample, even if an asserted power is in the agency’s “wheel-house,” we might rule (and have ruled) against the agency if the power is “unheralded” because the statute has stood for decades without being interpreted to convey the power claimed. See, e.g., Brown & Williamson, 529 U. S., at 144, 159–160.

Ultimately, the central question in any major questions case remains whether the executive branch’s claim to an extraordinary power is supported by clear statutory author-ity. And, as the principal opinion explains at length, many additional clues beyond those the dissent addresses confirm that the President cannot meet that standard in this case. These additional clues include the way the key statutory term “regulate” is used elsewhere in the U. S. Code, how Congress has delegated tariff authority in the past, and other neighboring language in IEEPA itself. Ante, at 14–15.

Contrary to the dissent’s charge, too, the principal opin-ion’s application of the major questions doctrine today in no way amounts to a “magic-words test.” Post, at 44. Of course, if IEEPA included terms like “tariff ” or “duty,” that would have sufficed. But, to borrow a phrase from the dis-sent, “monetary exactions on foreign imports” would have worked just as well. Post, at 17. Same goes for “tax on im-ported goods.” Or any similarly clear term or phrase. But IEEPA includes no such language, just a broad term that could cover almost anything a government does. And re-quiring specific rather than general language is just how clear-statement rules work. See, e.g., Sossamon, 563 U. S., at 291.

If the President’s claim fails under our usual major ques-tions test, the dissent says we should respond by carving out an exception to it for cases (like this one) touching on “foreign affairs.” Post, at 45.

On this score, I share a limited point of agreement with the dissent. Like the nondelegation doctrine, the major questions doctrine protects Article I’s Vesting Clause and, for that reason, the doctrine does not apply where the President is exercising only his own inherent Article II powers. Like the nondelegation doctrine, too, the major questions doctrine may speak with less force where the President and Congress enjoy “overlap[ping] . . . authority.” See Gundy v. United States, 588 U. S. 128, 159 (2019) (GORSUCH, J., dissenting); see also C. Bradley & J. Goldsmith, Foreign Affairs, Nondelegation, and the Major Questions Doctrine, 172 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1743, 1747 (2024) (Bradley & Goldsmith) (explaining the “supposed foreign affairs exception” to the nondelegation doctrine “is better understood as a qualifica-tion that concerns situations in which a statutory authori-zation relates to an independent presidential power”).

Doubtless, cases implicating overlapping powers can arise in the field of foreign affairs. The Constitution, for example, vests in Congress the power to raise and regulate armies, but it also vests in the President the commander-in-chief power. Compare Art. I, §8, cls. 12–14, with Art. II, §2, cl. 1. Similarly, Congress enjoys the power to regulate foreign commerce, but the President has power to negotiate treaties and nominate ambassadors. Compare Art. I, §8, cl. 3, with Art. II, §2, cl. 2. The President may even enjoy some “residual” powers pertaining to foreign affairs under Article II’s Vesting Clause endowing him with the “execu-tive Power.” See S. Prakash & M. Ramsey, The Executive Power Over Foreign Affairs, 111 Yale L. J. 231, 234 (2001)(Prakash & Ramsey); but see C. Bradley & M. Flaherty, Ex-ecutive Power Essentialism and Foreign Affairs, 102 Mich. L. Rev. 545, 551–552 (2004). Given all this, it is easy enough to imagine statutes and disputes under them that implicate both congressional and presidential powers where we might have reason to question whether the major questions doctrine applies with its usual force.

The problem for the dissent is that none of this is relevant here. Before us, the President concedes that he does not enjoy independent Article II authority to impose tariffs in peacetime. Ante, at 18–19. Nor does the President claim “‘concurrent’” constitutional authority to issue his tariffs. Ante, at 13 (citing Tr. of Oral Arg. 70–71). Instead, and to his credit, the President admits the power to authorize tar-iffs in peacetime is constitutionally vested in “Congress alone.” Ante, at 13 (internal quotation marks omitted). Therefore, the President relies entirely on power derived from Congress, and that means the major questions doc-trine applies in the normal way. See Bradley & Goldsmith 1796 (“IEEPA [is] not [an] authorizatio[n] that obviously connect[s] to independent presidential power in ways that would warrant the independent powers qualification”).

Because of this problem, the dissent must argue for a much broader “foreign affairs” qualification to the major questions doctrine. Rather than ask whether an independ-ent, constitutionally vested presidential power is impli-cated, the dissent would have us ask instead whether the President seeks to use the statute in question for a foreign affairs purpose—for example, as a “too[l]” to “incentivize a change in behavior by allies . . . or enemies.” Post, at 50. When he does, the dissent submits, the major questions doc-trine should not apply. And that’s true, the dissent continues, even if the power the President asserts has “significant domestic ramifications.” Post, at 51.

This new exception to the major questions doctrine would have (enormous) consequences hard to reconcile with the Constitution. Article I, §8, vests in Congress many powers that touch on “foreign affairs.” Some of those powers were expected to be (and are) the “principal objects of federal legislation.” The Federalist No. 53, p. 333 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961) (J. Madison). They include not only the power to im-pose tariffs, cl. 1, but also the power to establish uniform rules of naturalization, cl. 4, appropriate money for armies, cl. 12, and define and punish offenses against the law of nations, cl. 10. Under the dissent’s view, all these legislative powers and more could be passed wholesale to the executive branch in a few loose statutory terms, no matter what domestic ramifications might follow. And, as we have seen, Congress would often find these powers nearly impossible to retrieve. See Part I–C, supra.

Consider an example. Imagine Congress adopted a law that arguably could be read to let the President borrow and spend money during peacetime as he sees fit. A law like that would represent an extraordinary delegation of Congress’s power both to borrow “on the credit of the United States,” Art. I, §8, cl. 2, and to spend money in support of the “general Welfare,” §8, cl. 1, and would carry with it “significant domestic ramifications,” post, at 51. But if an enterprising executive could also use the law as a “tool” for affecting the behavior of “allies . . . or enemies,” the dissent seemingly would have us exempt it from scrutiny under the major questions doctrine.

The dissent’s exception is so broad it’s hard not to wonder how it fits with some of our existing major questions prece- dents. In West Virginia, the Court applied the major ques- tions doctrine over a dissent expressing concern that doing so would deny the EPA (and therefore the President) the power to respond to “the most pressing environmental chal- lenge of our time”—“[c]limate chang[e].” 597 U. S., at 753 (KAGAN, J., dissenting) (internal quotation marks omitted). A challenge, the dissent continued, that threatened conse- quences global in scope, including “mass migration events[,] political crises, civil unrest, and even state failure.” Id., at 754 (internal quotation marks omitted). Was West Virginia a “foreign affairs” case? How about our major questions cases addressing efforts to combat the global pandemic that was COVID–19? See, e.g., NFIB, 595 U. S., at 114. 4

(4 The dissent suggests that trying to identify when an independent Ar-ticle II authority is in play would prove “jurisprudentially chaotic.” Post, at 53, n. 23. But as the foregoing discussion illustrates, the dissent’s al-ternative “foreign affairs” test poses its own challenges. And it seems to me only one is firmly rooted in the text of the Constitution. See Bradley & Goldsmith 1747; see also Prakash & Ramsey 233 (“[O]ne would think that the Constitution’s text ought to play the preeminent role in discerning the Constitution’s allocation of foreign affairs powers”). In this case, too, only one test promises any manner of “chao[s]” because all parties before us readily agree that the Constitution affords the President no independent power to impose peacetime tariffs. See H. Powell, The President’s Authority Over Foreign Affairs: An Executive Branch Perspec-tive, 67 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 527, 549 (1999) (“The President has no inde-pendent power directly to regulate [or] tax . . . foreign commerce”).

Seeking support for its sweeping new exception, the dis-sent points to three main precedents. Post, at 46–48, 53– 57. I do not see how any of them might sustain its view. The first, Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U. S. 507 (2004), con-cerned the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), legislation which authorized the President to use “all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons” responsible for the September 11, 2001, attacks. Id., at 510 (internal quotation marks omitted). The dissent highlights the principal opinion’s conclusion that the AUMF allowed the President to detain enemy combatants even though the law did not mention that power expressly. Id., at 510, 516–517 (opinion of O’Connor, J.). And from this, the dissent draws the infer-ence that any statute addressing foreign affairs should be exempt from scrutiny under the major questions doctrine. Post, at 54–55. But the dissent overlooks the fact that the principal opinion reached the conclusion it did only because it found detention of enemy combatants to be a traditional “incident to war.” 542 U. S., at 518. And once Congress declares war (or, likewise, authorizes the use of military force abroad), that implicates the President’s commander-in-chief powers. Put simply, Hamdi was a case of overlap-ping powers. Ours is not.

Second, the dissent invokes Dames & Moore v. Regan, 453 U. S. 654 (1981). See post, at 55–56. At its heart, that case involved an executive order by President Reagan suspend-ing certain claims by U. S. citizens against Iran as part of a settlement involving the release of American hostages held there. 453 U. S., at 675. Just as we do today, Dames & Moore held that the “terms of the IEEPA . . . d[id] not au-thorize” the President’s actions. Ibid. Even so, the Court proceeded to uphold those actions anyway, and did so based in part on its view (right or wrong) that the President en-joyed some “‘independent’” power to “enter into executive agreements” suspending certain claims. Id., at 678, 682– 683. So unlike our case, Dames & Moore again involved overlapping powers. Along the way, too, the Court emphasized (repeatedly) the “narrowness” of its decision and that it should not be taken to “lay down” any “general ‘guide-lines’ covering other situations not involved here.” Id., at 661; see also id., at 660, 688. To derive from Dames & Moore a new general guideline exempting “foreign affairs” cases from the major questions doctrine’s reach would thus require us to disregard its own cautionary direction.

Third, the dissent cites United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp., 299 U. S. 304 (1936). See post, at 46–48. There, the Court did suggest that nondelegation rules in the field of “domestic or internal affairs” should differ from those in the realm of “foreign or external affairs.” Curtiss-Wright, 299 U. S., at 315. But what should we make of that language? If it means that the nondelegation doctrine (and perhaps, by extension, the major questions doctrine) must account for the President’s independent Article II powers, I agree.

But I would hesitate to read more into the decision than that. Consider what was really at issue there. A statute permitted the President to ban the transfer of one class of goods (armaments). Id., at 312. It did so with respect to two countries then engaged in a war (Bolivia and Para-guay). Ibid. The President’s authority was conditioned on a finding that a ban “‘may contribute to the reestablish-ment of peace between those countries.’” Ibid. Before mak-ing that finding, too, Congress directed him to consult “‘with the governments of other American Republics.’” Ibid. All told, then, the statute set forth the policy for the President to pursue. It bounded his authority by limiting his options with respect to a limited class of goods and coun-tries. The statute further conditioned his exercise of those options on a factual finding reached after consultation with other nations. So whatever else might be said about Curtiss-Wright, one thing is apparent: In upholding the President’s actions under the law in question, the Court hardly allowed Congress to hand off all of its enumerated powers touching on foreign affairs to the President, the tar-iff power included. 5

(5 In places, the dissent also argues that the President’s inherent Article II authority includes a wartime tariff power. See post, at 22–24; see also Brief for Professor Aditya Bamzai as Amicus Curiae 3. But this only highlights the dissent’s bind. Whatever the full scope of the President’s Article II war powers may be (and the briefs before us reveal a healthy debate whether they include the power to impose tariffs), those powers are not implicated here. IEEPA is not a wartime statute, nor does the President claim we are at war with the countries whose goods are subject to the tariffs)

If its effort to secure a broad foreign affairs exception to the major questions doctrine won’t work, the dissent hints at a more limited one specific to tariffs. Such an exception makes sense, the dissent says, because “Presidents have long been granted substantial discretion over tariffs.” Post, at 52 (internal quotation marks omitted). Indeed, the dis-sent contends, this tradition traces “back to near the Found-ing.” Post, at 59. If the dissent were right about that, one might hesitate before accepting the President’s concession that this case does not implicate any inherent Article II au-thority. But, at least as I read it, history offers the dissent little to work with.

Americans fought the Revolution in no small part be-cause they believed that only their elected representatives (not the King, not even Parliament) possessed authority to tax them. Declaration of Independence ¶19. And, they be-lieved, that held true not just for direct taxes like those in the Stamp Act, but also for many duties on imports, like those found in the Sugar Act. E. Morgan & H. Morgan, The Stamp Act Crisis: Prologue to Revolution 72–74 (1995 ed.); see 1 E. Stanwood, American Tariff Controversies in the Nineteenth Century 60 (1903) (Stanwood); C. Van Tyne, The Causes of the War of Independence 126–136 (1922); J. Otis, The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved (1764), in The Collected Political Writings of James Otis 119, 161–162 (2015); see also id., at xii (Introduction).

Americans later codified these beliefs in the Constitution. Under the Articles of Confederation, the national govern-ment was laden with debt and enjoyed few ways to repay it. To address that problem, the framers afforded the federal government new taxing powers in the Constitution. Art. I, §8, cl. 1. Many thought these powers among “the most im-portant” features of the new federal charter. See, e.g., The Federalist No. 33, at 202–203 (A. Hamilton). But, con-sistent with their view that only the people’s elected repre-sentatives could constitutionally tax them, the framers gave Congress alone “access to the pockets of the people.” Id., No. 48, at 310 (J. Madison). And to cement that role, the Constitution required that “All Bills for raising Reve-nue shall originate in the House of Representatives,” the body most responsive to the people. Art. I, §7, cl. 1.

For much of the Nation’s history, this taxing power was essentially a tariff power. The framers even considered (and eventually rejected) the possibility of giving the fed-eral government the power to tax only through tariffs. The Federalist No. 35, at 211 (A. Hamilton). No surprise, then, that Congress’s first exercise of its taxing power was a tariff law. P. Ashley, Modern Tariff History 170–171 (2d ed. 1910). And until the 20th century, tariffs “accounted for between 50 and 90 percent” of the federal government’s rev-enue. J. Dobson, Two Centuries of Tariffs: The Background and Emergence of the United States International Trade Commission 1 (1976).

How did Congress exercise its all-important tariff power?It debated every detail of the first tariff Act. Stanwood 39– 71. Ultimately, Congress said, imported malt would incur a charge of 10 cents a bushel. Brown sugar one cent. Loaf sugar three cents. And so on. Id., at 59. The first tariff Act was set to last for seven years. Id., at 72. It lasted barely one. Ibid. Soon, Congress was at it again, laying out an-other exacting schedule of duties. Id., at 75–76. Through-out much of the 19th century, Congress proceeded simi-larly, enacting highly detailed tariff schedules one after another. See F. Taussig, The Tariff History of the United States 68–170 (8th ed. 1931).

An early debate over executive involvement in setting tariffs demonstrates just how strongly Congress felt that tariffs were a legislative business. In December 1791, Pres-ident Washington told Congress that General St. Clair had been defeated in the Northwest Indian War, and the coun-try would have to increase the size of the army. Stanwood 104. That meant the government needed more money. In response, a resolution was offered in the House of Repre-sentatives to solicit advice from the Secretary of the Treas-ury, Alexander Hamilton, on the best way to raise the addi-tional revenue—including through new tariffs. 3 Annals of Congress 437 (1792); Stanwood 105–106. Ultimately, Ham-ilton’s advice was sought, but only after a debate over the constitutionality of even asking a member of the executive branch for advice on raising revenue. Ibid.; 3 Annals of Congress 447.

To be sure, on later occasions Congress turned to the ex-ecutive branch for more help still. But it usually did so to address changing trade practices in foreign countries. And in doing so, Congress set the important policies, with the executive branch responsible for finding facts—like what other countries’ trade policies were at any given moment—or filling in the details. So, for example, Congress passed a statute in 1815 to repeal any “discriminating duty of ton-nage . . . whenever the President” was “satisfied” that other countries’ “discriminating or countervailing duties” had “been abolished.” Act of Mar. 3, 1815, ch. 77, 3 Stat. 224; see also, e.g., Act of Jan. 7, 1824, 4 Stat. 2–3

Given this history, it’s no surprise that the dissent relies mostly on statutes and cases after 1890. Post, at 59. But even they do little to support its claim. J. W. Hampton, Jr., & Co. v. United States, 276 U. S. 394 (1928), for example, involved a law instructing the President to “investigat[e]” the costs of production for American firms and their foreign counterparts and issue tariffs to “equalize” those costs. Id., at 401, 409 (internal quotation marks omitted). The statute the Court faced in Marshall Field & Co. v. Clark, 143 U. S. 649, 681 (1892), spoke similarly. Even when Federal Energy Administration v. Algonquin SNG, Inc., 426 U. S. 548, came along in 1976, the Court upheld President Ford’s imposition of monetary exactions on a single class of products under a statute that provided at least some guidance about how he should implement the law. Id., at 559. And whether correctly decided or not, that case lies a far step from this one.

Before us, the President insists he may use IEEPA to equalize foreign and domestic duties—or not. He may use it to negotiate with foreign countries—or not. He may set tariffs at 1 percent or 1,000,000 percent. He may target one nation and one product or every nation and nearly every product. And he may change his mind at any time for nearly any reason. At least as I see it, history dating “back to near the Founding,” post, at 59, does not support the no-tion that Presidents have traditionally enjoyed so much power. More nearly, history refutes it. 6

(6 Beyond the major questions hurdle, the dissent faces another, related one: the nondelegation doctrine. There the problems are just as acute. In recent decades, this Court has employed a relatively lax “intelligible principle” test to police delegations. See FCC v. Consumers’ Research, 606 U. S. 656, 673 (2025); cf. Gundy v. United States, 588 U. S. 128, 157– 159 (2019) (GORSUCH, J., dissenting) (arguing for a more traditional test). But recognizing that even the intelligible principle test poses challenges for it, the dissent contends for an even laxer test yet in cases involving “foreign affairs” and tariffs. Post, at 57–61. It’s an effort that fails for reasons we have just seen. Even if the nondelegation doctrine should apply differently when congressional legislation and executive actions implicate inherent Article II powers, Gundy, 588 U. S., at 159, none of that means it should do so where (as here) the President derives what-ever authority he has only from Congress.)

That leaves one final camp to consider. JUSTICE THOMAS suggests that Congress may hand over most of its constitu-tionally vested powers to the President completely and for-ever. Post, at 2–3 (dissenting opinion). On his view, the only powers Congress may not delegate are those that in-volve “rules setting the conditions for deprivations of life, liberty, or property.” Ibid. From this rule, it follows that Congress may give all its tariff powers to the President be-cause “[i]mporting is a matter of privilege.” Post, at 10–11. And, as a result, this case does not implicate any “‘“separa-tion of powers”’” concerns at all. Post, at 3 (quoting ante, at 8).

It’s a sweeping theory. One that would require us to reimagine much of our case law addressing Article I’s Vest-ing Clause. And one that presents difficulties of its own.

First, I do not see how JUSTICE THOMAS’s theory resolves all “‘“separation of powers”’” concerns in this case. Post, at 3 (quoting ante, at 8). Suppose for argument’s sake that Congress can delegate its tariff powers to the President as completely as JUSTICE THOMAS suggests. Even then, the question remains whether Congress has given the Presi-dent the tariff authority he claims in this case—or whether the President is seeking to exploit questionable statutory language to aggrandize his own power. See Part I–C, su-pra. Put another way, JUSTICE THOMAS’s nondelegation so-lution does not automatically solve the major questions problem. As we have seen, when an executive official claims Congress has delegated to him some extraordinary power, the major questions doctrine requires him to identify clear statutory authority for its exercise—a standard he must satisfy even if Congress is free to pass to him the power he seeks. Post, at 2–3. In fact, this Court has previ-ously applied, with our colleague’s assent, the major ques-tions doctrine in a case that appears, under his present view, to involve a power that Congress could delegate wholesale to the President. See Nebraska, 600 U. S., at 486–488 (involving the power to cancel federal student loan debts, which on JUSTICE THOMAS’s account presumably qualifies as a benefit or privilege, not a right to life, liberty, or property). And, just as the major questions doctrine pre-cluded the executive branch’s assertion of power in that case, it does so here.

Second, even when it comes to the nondelegation doc-trine, JUSTICE THOMAS’s theory raises many questions. I appreciate that the doctrine may apply with less force in certain areas, such as when Congress legislates in a way that implicates one of the President’s inherent powers. See Part III–B, supra; Gundy, 588 U. S., at 159 (GORSUCH, J., dissenting). But JUSTICE THOMAS would go much further. On his telling, the doctrine applies only to Congress’s true legislative powers, which he says include only those powers addressing the deprivation of life, liberty, or property. As it turns out, only a small subset of Congress’s enumerated powers in Article I, §8, fit that bill. See post, at 5–6 (listing the powers to punish counterfeiters, tax “internal[ly],” and regulate interstate commerce). Only those few powers are exclusively vested in Congress and subject to review of any kind under the nondelegation doctrine. All “other kinds of power[s]” enumerated in Article I, §8—including the pow-ers to borrow and spend money, declare war, and regulate foreign trade—are not truly legislative and may be dele-gated at will. Post, at 2. So Congress may hand them off to the President completely and he has no need to worry about legal challenges under even this Court’s (relatively lax) nondelegation doctrine. No matter, too, that Congress might find itself permanently unable to retrieve these pow-ers. See Part I–C, supra.

But if all that’s true, what do we make of the Constitu-tion’s text? Section 1 of Article I vests “[a]ll legislative Pow-ers herein granted” in Congress and no one else. Section 8 proceeds to list those powers in detail and without differen-tiation. Neither provision speaks of some divide between true legislative powers touching on “life, liberty, or prop-erty” that are permanently vested in Congress alone and “other kinds of power[s]” that may be given away and pos-sibly lost forever to the President. Post, at 2.

What do we make, too, of what the founders said about Article I both before and after the Constitution’s ratifica-tion? They regularly referred to powers in Article I, §8—even those that do not touch on life, liberty, or property—as legislative in nature. At the Constitutional Convention, early drafts described the powers to regulate “foreign” com-merce, “raise armies,” “equip Fleets,” “coi[n] . . . money,” and “establish post-offices” as “legislative powers.” 2 The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, pp. 142–144 (M. Farrand ed. 1966) (Farrand). James Madison wrote to Con-gress in 1817 that “[t]he legislative powers vested in Con-gress are specified and enumerated in the eighth section of the first article of the Constitution.” 8 The Writings of James Madison 386 (G. Hunt ed. 1908); see also 1 id., at 112, 133, 381 (noting, before the Constitutional Convention, the “legislative power over captures,” and arguing borrowing money is an “exclusive power of Legislation”).

Alexander Hamilton spoke similarly. 3 The Works of Al-exander Hamilton 479 (H. Lodge ed. 1904) (Lodge) (discuss-ing “[t]he legislative power of borrowing money”); 6 id., at 182 (describing “the legislative power of regulating trade with foreign nations”); 2 id., at 197, 198 (calling of “the leg-islative kind” and “of a legislative nature” the powers to raise money and troops, “establish rules in all cases of cap-ture by sea or land,” “regulate the alloy and value of coin,” and “make all laws for the government of the army and navy”). So did James Wilson. 1 Collected Works of James Wilson 268 (K. Hall & D. Hall eds. 2007) (describing all the Senate’s powers as “legislative powers,” with the exception of the powers to try impeachments, concur in treaties, and consent to the appointment of officers, matters addressed outside Art. I, §8).

What do we make as well of early congressional debates? In the Second Congress, for example, the House of Repre-sentatives rejected on nondelegation grounds a proposal to give the President a largely unfettered power to establish postal routes, even though doing so hardly would have touched on life, liberty, or property. 3 Annals of Congress 229–242. In the Fifth Congress, four Representatives like-wise objected on nondelegation grounds to a bill that au-thorized the President to raise an army of up to 10,000 men. 8 id., at 1525–1527, 1532, 1535 (remarks of Reps. Nicholas, Gallatin, Baldwin, and McDowell). Though the bill ulti-mately passed, see Act of May 28, 1798, 1 Stat. 558, it did so apparently because it was deemed not to violate Article I’s nondelegation principle—no Member of Congress re-sponded that the principle was wholly inapplicable because the delegated power was not one that involved setting con-ditions for deprivations of life, liberty, or property. See 8 Annals of Congress 1525–1542.

What are we to do, too, with this Court’s nondelegation precedents, which have never turned on JUSTICE THOMAS’s view of life, liberty, or property? See J. W. Hampton, Jr., & Co., 276 U. S., at 403, 409 (scrutinizing a delegation to ex-ecutive officials to set customs duties); Panama Refining Co. v. Ryan, 293 U. S. 388, 405–406, 422, 433 (1935) (hold-ing unconstitutional a delegation to executive officials to prohibit the transportation of petroleum products in inter-state and foreign commerce); National Broadcasting Co. v. United States, 319 U. S. 190, 196, 214–215, 225–226 (1943) (scrutinizing the delegation of authority to regulate the granting of broadcasting licenses); see also Sessions v. Di-maya, 584 U. S. 148, 217 (2018) (THOMAS, J., dissenting) (“[I]mpermissible delegations of legislative power violate [the nondelegation] principle, not just delegations that de-prive individuals of ‘life, liberty, or property’”).

Third, even if a distinction between true legislative pow-ers and “other kinds of power[s]” were proper, post, at 2, I do not see why the tariff power would fall in the latter cat-egory and thus be something Congress could delegate away wholesale, without scrutiny, and forever. JUSTICE THOMAS suggests all that is possible because, at the founding, the tariff power was considered a “‘prerogative right’” of the British King. Post, at 11 (quoting N. Gras, Early English Customs System 21 (1918)).

That seems doubtful. Tariffs may have been among the King’s prerogative powers during the reign of Edward I. See id., at 20–21; see also post, at 11, n. 3 (citing P. Einzig, The Control of the Purse: Progress and Decline of Parlia-ment’s Financial Control 65 (1959) (discussing the practices “during the Middle Ages”)). But even before the year 1400, Parliament had achieved some “victory over the King in the matter of imposing import duties.” Id., at 108–109. And after the Glorious Revolution of 1688, as this Court has put it, Parliament “secured supremacy in fiscal matters.” Con-sumer Financial Protection Bureau v. Community Finan-cial Services Assn. of America, Ltd., 601 U. S. 416, 428 (2024) (citing 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 306, 333 (1771)). “By the time of the American Revolution, trade regulation was thus a prime topic of leg-islative concern” in Britain. M. McConnell, The President Who Would Not Be King 217 (2020) (emphasis added); see also J. Chitty, Law of the Prerogatives of the Crown 163 (1820) (“[T]he King does not possess any general common law prerogative with respect to foreign commerce”).

More importantly still, whatever the views in Britain may have been, American revolutionaries hardly shared some universal conviction that all manner of tariffs were a matter of the King’s prerogative, or even something Parlia-ment, lacking colonial representatives, could freely impose on them. Though in the mid-1760s some colonists distin-guished between “‘internal’” and “‘external’ taxation” and “conceded [Parliament’s] right to raise revenue through du-ties on trade,” “the inadequacy of [that] much overstrained distinction” soon “became obvious.” B. Bailyn, The Ideolog-ical Origins of the American Revolution 212–213, 215 (1967). Illustrative of the point, John Dickinson came to “repudiat[e]” the distinction “flatly and formally” in his Let-ters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, id., at 215, contending instead that laws aimed at raising revenue, but enacted without representation, were objectionable without “dis-tinction . . . between internal and external taxes,” Letters From a Farmer in Pennsylvania 39 (1774). See also supra, at 36–37 (recounting colonial objections to the Sugar Act); H. Unger, American Tempest 101 (2011) (observing that the “import duties” in the Townshend Acts helped “incite Amer-icans to rebel”). And, of course, it was duties on foreign tea that triggered the Boston Tea Party. J. Ellis, The Cause 17–18 (2021). Are we really to believe that the patriots that night in Boston Harbor considered the whole of the tariff power some kingly prerogative?

As we have already seen, too, the growing American con-viction that the peacetime tariff power is legislative and be-longs only to the people’s elected representatives was later reflected in both the Constitution and early congressional practice. See Part III–C, supra. To that discussion, I would add just this. The Articles of Confederation granted the Confederation Congress authority to make commercial treaties, but no authority to restrain “the legislative power of the respective states” to impose “imposts and duties on foreigners.” Art. IX (emphasis added). At the Constitu-tional Convention that followed, where the tariff power was transferred to the federal government, delegates likewise referred to it as a “legislative power.” See, e.g., 3 Farrand 615; 2 id., at 142–143. And, during debates over the Jay Treaty, Hamilton explained that he held no doubt that reg-ulating foreign trade and raising money from it was a “leg-islative power,” if one that could be constrained by treaty. 6 Lodge 182, 189–190, 196. Reflecting the same sentiment that helped fuel the Revolution, he asked: “[W]hat legisla-tive power can be more sacred?” Id., at 196.

For those who think it important for the Nation to impose more tariffs, I understand that today’s decision will be dis-appointing. All I can offer them is that most major deci-sions affecting the rights and responsibilities of the Ameri-can people (including the duty to pay taxes and tariffs) are funneled through the legislative process for a reason. Yes, legislating can be hard and take time. And, yes, it can be tempting to bypass Congress when some pressing problem arises. But the deliberative nature of the legislative process was the whole point of its design. Through that process, the Nation can tap the combined wisdom of the people’s elected representatives, not just that of one faction or man. There, deliberation tempers impulse, and compromise hammers disagreements into workable solutions. And because laws must earn such broad support to survive the legislative pro-cess, they tend to endure, allowing ordinary people to plan their lives in ways they cannot when the rules shift from day to day. In all, the legislative process helps ensure each of us has a stake in the laws that govern us and in the Na-tion’s future. For some today, the weight of those virtues is apparent. For others, it may not seem so obvious. But if history is any guide, the tables will turn and the day will come when those disappointed by today’s result will appre-ciate the legislative process for the bulwark of liberty it is.

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