Asian American businesses reel as Supreme Court strikes down Trump tariffs

Grace Meng delivered a scathing response after the Supreme Court of the United States ruled 6–3 that the Trump administration’s sweeping tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) of 1977 were illegal.

Meng said the High Court’s decision confirms what many small business owners have been saying for years — the tariffs were unlawful and economically devastating.

“Today’s Supreme Court decision strikes down the president’s illegal tariff regime, but the damage is done,” Meng declared. “Trump's disastrous tariffs have caused irreversible harm to more than three million Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander-owned small businesses across this country.”

She stressed that many AANHPI-owned businesses depend on imported ethnic and cultural goods that simply cannot be manufactured domestically. Because of the tariffs, countless entrepreneurs were left with impossible choices: raise prices on already struggling customers or close their doors entirely.

“These were not abstract policy experiments. These were real families, real livelihoods, and real communities put at risk,” Meng said.

The Queens lawmaker sharply criticized former President Donald Trump, accusing him of breaking promises to lower costs for working families.

“President Trump pledged to bring prices down. Instead, he launched reckless trade wars that drove costs up and treated AANHPI-owned businesses as collateral damage,” she said.

Meng called on Congress to reassert its constitutional authority over trade, warning against unchecked executive power.

“Congress must reclaim its constitutional responsibility to regulate trade,” she said. “No president should be allowed to unilaterally gamble with the economic survival of American families and small businesses.”

The ruling represents a major judicial rebuke of executive overreach and could reshape how future administrations invoke emergency powers in trade policy.