HMM: Supreme Court justices appear skeptical that Trump tariffs are legal.

Lower federal courts have ruled that Trump lacked the legal authority he cited under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose the so-called reciprocal tariffs on imports from many U.S. trading partners, and fentanyl tariffs on products from Canada, China and Mexico.

Sauer, who is defending the tariff policy as grounded in the power to regulate foreign commerce, said “these are regulatory tariffs. They are not revenue-raising tariffs.”

“The fact that they raise revenue was only incidental,” Sauer said, shortly after oral arguments in the case began.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, one of the court’s three liberal members, told Sauer, “You say tariffs are not taxes, but that’s exactly what they are.”

“They’re generating money from American citizens, revenue,” Sotomayor said.

She later noted that no president other than Trump has ever used IEEPA to impose tariffs.

Developing…