New Delhi: Authoring a six-three majority opinion, United States Chief Justice John Roberts, a conservative, on 20 February, ruled against Republican President Donald Trump’s sweeping global tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), marking a major constitutional and political setback for the Trump administration.
The judgment from the conservative-majority bench came after a legal challenge, in which Indian-origin American lawyer Neal Katyal served as counsel and Sara Albrecht, the chair of the non-profit Liberty Justice Centre, as co-counsel. The case challenged the Trump administration’s use of the 1977 IEEPA to justify broad tariffs on trade partners.
The central premise of Katyal’s arguments was that the US President overstepped his constitutional authority. The son of Indian immigrant parents, Surendar & Pratibha Katyal, he argued that tariffs are one form of taxation, which, under the Constitution, only the US Congress has the power to impose.
After the verdict, Katyal posted on the social media platform X: “Thinking of my father first and foremost, who came to this land of freedom. And also of Ted and Walter, who continue to inspire me. May the Constitution win.”
A graduate of Dartmouth College and Yale Law School, Neal Katyal was referring to Ted Olson, a former US solicitor general who partnered with Katyal on high-profile cases, most notably the California marriage equality case, and Walter Dellinger, former US assistant attorney general and acting solicitor general, who was a prominent constitutional law scholar.
Katyal, who was also the acting solicitor general under President Obama in 2010, has argued 54 cases in the US Supreme Court, more than any other minority lawyer, and is currently a partner at the law firm Milbank LLP and a professor at the Georgetown University Law Centre.
Previously, Neal Katyal has challenged Trump’s 2017 travel ban, commonly called the ‘Muslim ban’, and served as a special prosecutor in the George Floyd murder case, helping secure the conviction of Minneapolis Police Department officer Derek Chauvin.
Katyal was named to Forbes’ list of the Top 200 Lawyers in the U.S. for both 2024 and 2025. He is the author of the 2019 book Impeach: The Case Against Donald Trump and made cameo appearances as himself in TV series such as House of Cards in 2015 and Billions in 2021. He also appeared as a guest on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
Katyal has become the face of the Supreme Court ruling, but he has insisted on an X post: “Sara is the hero. She showed bravery and guts in bringing the case to challenge the tariffs when no one else did. She and her entire legal team were magnificent.”
The Liberty Justice Centre is a PIL firm, and one of its most significant victories before this current ruling was the 2018 US Supreme Court case Janus vs AFSCME, which ruled that public sector workers cannot be forced to pay union dues as a condition of employment.
In his recent appearances on TV, Neal Katyal has also highlighted a coalition of small business owners who helped make his case in the court by explaining how the tariffs directly harmed them.
The judgment has direct financial impacts for India, as it will likely lower costs for Indian exporters and enhance their competitiveness in the US market. Now, 55 percent of India’s exports to the US—according to the study of a Delhi thinktank—will be subject to standard most-favoured-nation tariffs only. However, the verdict throws a recently reached interim US-India trade agreement, built upon the now-overturned tariff regime, into question, though Trump has stressed that “nothing changes”.
Shiv Sena (Uddhav Bal Thakeray) Member of Parliament Priyanka Chaturvedi, representing the broader Opposition sentiment, has reportedly criticised the Indian government’s decision to sign an interim trade deal with the US as early as February 2026, while the court was still mulling its judgment on the legality of President Trump’s global tariffs.
The Trump administration’s key defence was that the levies were essential for national security and economic leverage—it cited the fentanyl crisis and trade deficits as emergencies that drove the IEEPA. However, linking the fentanyl crisis to the broad tariffs did not hold sway in court, with the judges focusing on the “separation of powers” and holding that even if there was a fentanyl emergency, the US President cannot use the law to impose tariffs to solve it without Congress.
The court also did not rule on whether trade deficits can be considered a valid national emergency, which left a gap. The Trump administration has now pivoted to sections 122 and 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. These sections empower the US President to impose tariffs on any country “discriminating” against American commerce.
On the judgment, Trump reportedly said, “I’m ashamed of certain members of the court—absolutely ashamed—for not having the courage to do what’s right for our country.”
(Edited by Viny Mishra)
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