President Donald Trump holds up a chart while speaking during an event announcing broad global tariffs in the Rose Garden of the White House on April 2, 2025.  (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in early November on whether President Donald Trump’s emergency tariffs are legal, according to an order the court released Tuesday.

The one-page unsigned order laid out an expedited timeline, which the administration had requested, for the consolidated legal challenges brought by a handful of business owners and a dozen Democratic state attorneys general.

A U.S. appeals court sided with the businesses and state officials late last month. In its 7-4 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld a lower court’s ruling in May finding Trump’s unprecedented use of the International Economic Emergency Powers Act to trigger global tariffs violated the Constitution.

The justices’ acceptance of the case is the latest in a string of legal challenges against the administration that have escalated to the high court since Trump took office in January. Recently the Supreme Court has handed the administration wins on immigration enforcement and withholding foreign aid.

Trump began imposing wide-reaching tariffs in February and significantly broadened them in the following months on goods from around the globe after declaring national emergencies — first over illegal fentanyl smuggling, and then declaring trade deficits an emergency. A trade deficit means the U.S. imports more goods from a country than that nation’s businesses purchase from U.S. suppliers.

As of July, the U.S. had collected roughly $122 billion in tariff revenue, according to a monthly tracker produced by the Peterson Institute on International Economics. 

Tariffs are taxes that the U.S. government collects from domestic businesses and purchasers when they import foreign goods.

In the administration’s appeal to the Supreme Court to fast-track the case, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent argued the government would face “catastrophic” economic fallout if it had to repay businesses for the tariffs already collected, particularly if the court waited until next year to take the case.

Arizona, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico and Oregon were among states that challenged Trump’s emergency tariffs. 

The business plaintiffs include V.O.S. Selections, a New York-based company that imports wine and spirits from 16 countries, a Utah-based plastics producer, a Virginia-based children’s electricity learning kit maker, a Pennsylvania-based fishing gear company, and a Vermont-based women’s cycling apparel company.