Shu-Yi Oei (Duke, SSRN) presents The Origination Clause and the President’s Tariffs today at Boston University as part of its BU Law Tax Policy Forum.

The President’s dramatic use of tariffs in 2025 has unleashed a host of constitutional and statutory interpretation challenges, which the Supreme Court will consider this Term in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump. In this paper, we examine the role played by the Origination Clause, together with the Taxing Power Clause, in analyzing presidential tariff powers. We argue that while the Origination Clause does not provide a strong constitutional limit on the President’s power to impose the 2025 tariffs, the clause does hold significance for statutory interpretation, because only a revenue raising statute empowers the President to impose revenue raising tariffs.

First, Origination Clause case law helps courts identify revenue raising statutes based on the goal of the legislation and the use of the funds raised. Second, the legislative process anticipated by the Origination Clause and the Taxing Power Clause demonstrates the Founders’ intent that Congress should identify and treat revenue raising statutes as such. The fewer indicia that Congress considered a statute to be revenue raising when enacting it, the weaker the case for interpreting it as a revenue raising statute.

This statutory interpretation approach holds relevance for analyzing the President’s authority to impose the 2025 tariffs. For example, a key issue in Learning Resources is how to interpret the President’s authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to “regulate” “importation” in an “emergency.” IEEPA (1) does not mention tariffs or taxes and would not be considered a revenue raising statute under Origination Clause case law and (2) contains no congressional process indicators of being a revenue raising statute. Accordingly, our statutory interpretation analysis supports a conclusion that IEEPA does not authorize the President’s 2025 tariffs.