Supreme Court delay may signal Trump win in high-stakes tariff fight, experts say

President Donald Trump’s chances of surviving a Supreme Court showdown over his sweeping tariff regime quietly appeared to tick higher Friday — not because the justices issued a ruling, but because they didn’t rule at all, according to legal observers.The high court again declined to issue a decision in the closely watched case challenging Trump’s use of emergency powers to impose tariffs, leaving investors, importers and businesses in limbo after bracing for an opinion that is yet to come despite their expectations.The delay marked the second time in less than a week that the court passed on releasing a ruling, fueling speculation that the justices are divided — and that the prolonged wait may ultimately favor the White House.“We agree that a long wait for the tariff decision is probably a better sign for the Trump administration than it is for importers, but it is no guarantee of the outcome,” Kelsey Christensen, a trade attorney at law firm Clark Hill, told the financial news site MarketWatch.Christensen said the case is still moving quickly by Supreme Court standards, noting that oral arguments were held just two months ago.“November to January is lightning speed for the court to hear and publish a major opinion,” she observed, adding that the justices may be “fine-tuning a majority opinion” along with “dissents or concurrences.”In legalese, a concurrence is a separate opinion written by a judge who agrees with the majority but wishes to state different reasoning or emphasize other arguments.Terence Lau, dean of Syracuse University’s law school and a former trade attorney for Ford Motor Co., told MarketWatch that the justices may be struggling with how far to go if they rule against Trump.“The longer wait suggests the justices are debating the scope of the remedy,” Lau said.One possibility, he said, is a “middle ground” outcome in which the court invalidates the tariffs but limits refunds to future collections, sparing the Tre...