WATCH: WA lawmaker, trade and business groups react to SCOTUS tariff ruling
National News
Audio By Carbonatix
5:44 PM on Friday, February 20
Carleen Johnson
(The Center Square) - A Washington lawmaker, trade and business group are reacting to Friday’s ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court against President Trump’s tariffs.
In an historic 6-3 decision today, the high court said the tariff tax increases unilaterally imposed by the executive branch under emergency powers are unconstitutional. The ruling reaffirms that the power to tax is exclusively reserved to the legislative branch.
“The ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court on the tariffs was not a complete surprise,” said GOP Chairman Jim Walsh, R-Aberdeen, in a Friday interview with The Center Square. “Tariffs, when they're used properly, are a scalpel. They're not sledgehammers. And when you use tariff policy correctly, it should be used precisely in a narrow and focused way.
Walsh said as a free market person, and a fiscal conservative he’s “not crazy about tariffs as a trade policy tool.”
The Washington Council on International Trade emailed a statement to The Center Square calling the ruling “an important step forward for the Northwest's businesses, workers, and consumers.”
WCIT President Lori Otto Punke further noted in the statement that the tariffs caused "serious harm."
“For more than a year, these tariffs have caused serious harm triggering retaliatory duties on key agricultural exports, eroding markets for goods and services, increasing construction and production costs, disrupting cross-border supply chains, and reducing price competitiveness," she was quoted in the statement. "From apples to wine, from advanced manufacturing to wood products to technology and innovation, the Supreme Court has now affirmed that trade policy of this magnitude must rest on proper legal authority, wrote Otto Punke.
The National Federation of Independent Business Washington State Director Patrick Connor said the ruling will help with affordability.
"Main Street small-business owners paying attention to the tariff controversy may feel some relief and optimism that as more goods start flowing through our state's ports, supply chain problems will ease, and prices will start to drop," Connor wrote in a statement to The Center Square. "They are more likely to worry though that Olympia's push for a new Millionaire Tax will hit their bottom lines as an income tax on business earnings, not take-home pay."
Walsh told The Center Square said the mostly favorable response to the decision from Washington business and trade groups was not a surprise.
“It is likely to be applauded by the major players in Washington state with industrial groups, software companies, tech companies, things like this," Walsh said. “But the administration still can apply more narrowly tailored tariffs to specific circumstances and may do that right quick. I think in general, this will be perceived as something that the Washington business community likes, both the tech industry and the transportation trade organizations that operate out of our ports and other places."
The Association of Washington Business emailed a statement to The Center Square applauding the SCOTUS decision against Trump’s tariffs.
“As one of the most trade-driven states in the country, the tariffs imposed last year have significantly impacted Washington employers," wrote AWB President Kris Johnson. "Although some Washington businesses have benefited from tariffs, the majority have experienced negative impacts in the form of higher costs on business inputs, supply chain disruption, lost or reduced export markets and canceled orders.
“In the most recent Association of Washington Business employer survey, more than half of all respondents (54%) reported that tariffs have hurt their business, with the largest percentage (60%) reporting higher costs….In many cases, employers have been unable to absorb the higher costs without passing them on to their customers,” the statement said.
The Center Square Washington State Editor Brett Davis contributed to this story.
