Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump · ¶55

The Government raises another contextual argument. Because “regulate” “lies between” two “poles” in IEEPA— “compel” on the affrmative end and “prohibit” on the negative end—the term naturally includes the “less extreme, more fexible” tool of tariffs. Reply Brief 9 (internal quotation marks omitted); see post, at 357–358 (opinion of Kavanaugh, J.) (making a greater-includes-the-lesser argument). But tariffs, as discussed above, are different in kind, not degree, from the other authorities in IEEPA. Unlike those authorities, tariffs operate directly on domestic importers to raise revenue for the Treasury. See 19 U. S. C. § 1505(a); 19 CFR § 141.1(b) (2025). Even though a tariff is, in some sense, “less extreme” than an outright compulsion or prohibition, it does not follow that tariffs lie on the spectrum between those poles. They are instead “very clear[ly] . . . a branch of the taxing…

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