It has been a bad week for President Donald J. Trump. He was overwhelmingly trounced in every election held this week. The Democrats exceeded all expectations.

Then Pope Leo criticised his human rights record. A former chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court said that his missile attacks on Venezuelan boats were a “crime against humanity”. The government shutdown entered a record week and Transport Secretary Sean Duffy warned that he would have to start cancelling flights.

But perhaps the most impactful event occurred not at the polling stations but in the dusty and cerebral corridors of the US Supreme Court. It was there that the nine Justices appeared to find their collective backbone and do the job for which they were intended—preventing over-reach by the executive branch of the US government.

Before the court was the issue of Trump’s tariffs. And the court was faced with two main questions: Did the president abuse his power by imposing tariffs without congressional approval and is there an economic emergency that justifies him in using his powers?

We won’t know for some months—possibly not until June—the court’s ruling on these issues. But on Wednesday we were provided with an inkling of the Justices’ thinking based on the rather pointed the questions that they were asking the president’s legal team.

Amy Coney Barrett, is a Trump-appointed Justice who has supported the president on almost every contentious issue. She asked Solicitor-General John Sauer: “And so it is your contention that every country needed to be tariffed because of threats to the defense and industrial base? I mean, Spain? France? Italy? I could see it with some countries, but explain to me why as many countries needed to be subjected to reciprocal tariffs as are.”

Neil Gorsuch, another Trump appointee, asked: “What would prohibit Congress from just abdicating all responsibility to regulate foreign commerce. Because that is effectively what you are suggesting.”

And Chief Justice John Roberts commented: “The justification is being used for power to impose tariffs on any product from any country for any length of time.”

Tariffs are a foundation stone of Trump’s administration. Their loss would, according to Trump, be “devastating.” He is right.

The income from the tariffs is needed to pay for the increased defense spending and tax cuts in his “One Big Beautiful Bill” which has already passed Congress and is being implemented.

If the Supreme Court rules against the administration than, not only would the White House have to rescind tariffs, but it is almost certain that it would have to refund the money it collected. The refund amount could be as much as $1 trillion which the government doesn’t have because it has cut taxes everywhere else. Justice Barrett said refunding could become “a complete mess.”

The importance of this case was emphasised by the supporting courtroom appearances of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer. They told the court that if they ruled against the administration’s use of the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose tariffs then they would just find another loophole to push their tariffs through.

And they can. There are several other laws they could use such as the 1930 Tariff Act, the 1934 Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act and the 1974 Trade Act. But using those acts would only buy time and annoy the court as they would all—almost certainly– eventually fall foul of the court’s original ruling that 1, there is no economic emergency and 2- congress, not the president, levies taxes.

So what happens to all the thousands of companies who have had to pay billions of dollars in import duties? Most of them are small businesses and many of them were sitting anxiously on the steps of the Supreme Court listening to Wednesday’s arguments.

They are unlikely to get their money back for decades, if at all. Faced with financial ruin, the government will use every legal trick to avoid returning the money or to at least delay its return until a Democrat administration is in power.

Meanwhile, the tariffs could ignite the long-anticipated show-down, no-holds barred, gloves off row between the judicial branch and the Trump White House. The administration will almost certainly frame the dispute as “judicial obstruction of national security.” The Supreme Court will say it is protecting the constitution.

Trump could avoid a showdown by persuading Congress to relinquish some of his taxing powers to give him control of tariffs. That, however, seems unlikely to be successful. In recent weeks there has a growing anti-tariff swell in Republican ranks. That swell will only grow as a result of this week’s elections.

Trump is in difficulties. But if the American economy falters because of his malfeasance, so are the rest of us.

* Tom Arms is foreign editor of Liberal Democrat Voice. He also contributes to “The New World” magazine and lectures on world affairs. He is the author of “America Made in Britain,” two editions of “The Encyclopaedia of the Cold War” and “The Falklands Crisis.”