A US Supreme Court must announce its next decisions on January 14while several important cases remain pending, including that imposed by President Donald Trump.
The court indicated on its website, on Friday (9), that it will be able to publish the decisions of the cases that will be judged when the judges take office in a session scheduled for next Wednesday (14). The court does not announce in advance which cases will be decided.
The judges issued a ruling Friday in a criminal case.
The challenge to Trump’s tariffs represents a key test of presidential powers, as well as the court’s willingness to rein in some of the Republican president’s sweeping assertions of authority since returning to office in January 2025. The outcome will also have an impact on the global economy.
During arguments presented in the case before the court on November 5, conservative and liberal justices appeared question the legality of the tariffs, which Trump imposed by invoking a 1977 law intended to be used during national emergencies. The Trump administration is appealing rulings by lower courts that found he overstepped his authority.
Trump said the tariffs strengthened the United States financially. In a social media post on Jan. 2, Trump said a Supreme Court ruling against the tariffs would be a “terrible blow” to the United States.
Trump invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose so-called “reciprocal” tariffs on goods imported from specific countries — virtually all foreign trading partners — to deal with what he called a national emergency related to the U.S. trade deficit. He invoked the same law to impose tariffs on China, Canada and Mexico, claiming that the traffic of the frequently abused painkiller fentanyl and illicit drugs for the United States constituted a national emergency.
Challenges to the tariffs in the cases that reached the Supreme Court were filed by companies affected by the tariffs and by 12 American states, most of them governed by Democrats.
Other important cases also await decisions from the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, including a challenge to a key section of the Voting Rights Actthe historic 1965 federal law enacted by Congress to prevent racial discrimination in voting.
Another case involves a question, based on freedom of expression, of a Colorado law that prohibits psychotherapists from performing “conversion therapy“which aims to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of an LGBT minor.
