Anthony Esposito, CEO of AscalonVI Captial, joined a panel on CNN to offer economic analysis of the Supreme Court’s landmark 6-3 ruling striking down President Trump’s IEPA tariffs. He wasted no time drawing a clear distinction that he felt the broader conversation was glossing over. While some panelists framed the ruling as narrow and easily worked around, Anthony argued it was genuinely significant — both legally and economically. He emphasized that the decision represented a meaningful institutional moment, with the court firmly asserting that the power to tax and spend belongs to Congress alone, not the executive branch. He also pushed back on the idea that the president could simply swap in other statutory authorities without consequence, noting that every alternative pathway comes with far more procedural requirements and far less flexibility than IEPA offered.
On the economic impact, Anthony brought data directly from his work at the Yale Budget Lab, revealing that the effective tariff rate had shifted from roughly 16.9% down to about 13.3% following the ruling — a meaningful but not dramatic change. However, he was quick to add an important caveat: the remaining tariffs enacted under new authorities would only stay in place for 150 days unless Congress chose to authorize them, a hurdle he viewed as a real political obstacle given Congress’s track record of resistance. He also addressed the question of consumer relief, arguing that even if tariff refunds were issued, they would flow to importing firms rather than directly to American consumers, who had already absorbed somewhere between 50 and 70 percent of tariff costs in the form of higher prices.
Anthony also weighed in on the volatility question, which he identified as one of the most consequential long-term consequences of the ruling. With the administration pivoting to new statutory authorities, businesses, consumers, and international trading partners are left with deep uncertainty about what tariff rates will look like week to week, let alone months down the road. He argued that this unpredictability undermines the very diplomatic leverage Trump believes tariffs provide him, because allies and adversaries alike cannot negotiate effectively against a moving and legally uncertain target.
When the panel turned to Senator John Kennedy’s suggestion that refunding the roughly $140 billion in collected tariffs back to corporations could serve as an economic boom, Anthony offered a measured but skeptical response. He acknowledged that returning capital to American importers could theoretically stimulate investment in a manner similar to a corporate tax cut, but he argued it would be largely offset by the inflationary damage already done to consumers. In his view, the tariff burden passed downstream to ordinary Americans would not be meaningfully neutralized by any marginal investment uptick at the corporate level, making the net economic picture considerably murkier than tariff proponents were willing to admit.
