Donald Trump’s Customs and Border Protection agency said they’ll stop collecting trade duties implemented under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act just after midnight on Tuesday.

That’s, um, generous of them. Those tariffs being officially illegal now.

Not to nitpick, but collections should’ve been suspended days ago, which is to say logistical annoyances aside, CBP should’ve ceased collection of the IEEPA levies as soon as the Supreme Court deemed them unconstitutional.

Call me a stickler, but if SCOTUS says stop, you have to stop. That’s the “It is so ordered” part on the last page of a majority opinion.

On Friday, shortly after the court decision and in conjunction with a prickly press conference, Trump issued an Executive Order which, in a reflection of his crestfallen state, was completely devoid of opinionated editorializing. In its place: Templated legalese.

“In light of recent events, the additional ad valorem duties imposed pursuant to IEEPA… shall no longer be in effect and, as soon as practicable, shall no longer be collected,” Trump said.

We should all pause to acknowledge that this is a victory for American democracy. While I’m hesitant to give Trump “credit” for resisting the temptation to plunge the country into an outright constitutional crisis (you don’t get brownie points for not being a dictator), the tariff ruling, and Trump’s begrudging acknowledgement of the justices’ authority to curb his powers, is the first time since his second inaugural that the system functioned as designed. That’s not nothin’. In fact, it’s everything.

With the exception of immigration, there’s no issue more important to Trump than international trade. That he recognized a court order explicitly denying to him the power to unilaterally impose tariffs on the basis of a subjective “emergency” declaration is remarkable coming from a man who, until now, has recognized no limitations on his authority during his second term. Wittingly or not, Trump has legitimized American democracy. That’s the big story, not “pure tariff chaos.”

Operationally, “as soon as practicable” when it comes to the cessation of IEEPA tariff collection is “on or after 12:00 a.m. eastern time on February 24, 2026,” according to CBP. I assume that means the US was (and, as of this writing, still is) collecting money for tariffs which were illegal as of last Friday morning.

I’m not sure how that’s working out on the ground. “Pay us the tariff.” “That tariff’s illegal. How about I don’t pay it?” “How about we bind your hands, put a sack over your head, tie a cinder block around your ankles and throw you off the pier?” “Well since you put it that way, who do I make the check out to?”

I won’t pretend this situation is any less confounding than it is, but without co-signing Trumpian absurdity, there’s something to the administration’s contention that the SCOTUS ruling at least opens the door to more certainty on tariffs.

Overdramatized bewailing in Brussels aside, the fact is, Trump will now have to articulate a reasonably clear rationale for the imposition of tariffs. Obviously, the administration will test the outer limits of interpretational sanity when it comes to the stipulations of Section 232 and Section 301 (for example), but at least there’s a process.

Put differently — and if you’ll pardon the light profanity — Trump’s latitude for bullsh-t is circumscribed in a way it wasn’t before. The hurdle for claiming a statutory justification for tariffs is now much higher. He’ll clear it, or claim to, but there’s a reason he went the IEEPA route in the first place.

Recall what I wrote on January 8, 2025, three weeks before Trump reclaimed the throne. To wit, from the linked article:

Trump loves IEEPA because it lets him play dictator. If there’s an emergency, the president can hand himself unilateral authority over imports, and he doesn’t have to do a lot of explaining. Long story short, IEEPA would let Trump impose new tariffs pretty much immediately, and without any sort of evidentiary burden. Going the Section 301 route, by contrast, requires a lengthy investigation and lets impacted companies petition the government for relief.

Now, over a year later, Trump will have to at least claim to have met the evidentiary burden required by the other statutes at his disposal when it comes to applying tariffs, and the administration will also have to at least pretend to have conducted an investigation.

Going forward — and assuming Trump doesn’t find a way to extend the Section 122 15% tariff beyond the 150-day limit delineated by the Trade Act of 1974 — tariffed countries will stand “accused” of something and those accusations will be based on evidence (flimsy or not) gathered during an investigation (shambolic or otherwise).

That’s a kind of clarity, certainly compared to the IEEPA farce which — and this was the crux of the issue — found Trump claiming for himself the unilateral, incontestable right to collect a trade tax at a rate of his choosing for an indefinite period, with no input from anyone, and without even the remote possibility of recourse for impacted countries and importers.

Far be it from me to convey anything short of unequivocal, fatalistic pessimism regarding the trajectory of American democracy — and while fully acknowledging that the next few months will feel like chaos on the trade front — but in his first real staring contest with the Constitution, Trump blinked.

That’s good news for America, and also for the world.