Trump just said Fuck You to the supreme court decision and to Congress. He signed an order saying he will enact 10%tariffs and can ignore congress.
Who has the power to arrest him for contempt of court?
That’s not exactly what’s happening here. He hasn’t refused to follow the supreme court ruling. Instead he’s claiming that other laws grant him the authority to impose tariffs.
In some respects he’s right. There is a law that very explicitly grants the president the authority to impose tariffs, but only up to 15%, and only for 150 days. It’s this law that he’ll be using to impose this new 10% global tariff.
He’ll likely also be trying to find any kind of legal wiggle room to maintain the existing tariffs, but I doubt he’ll get very far with that. At best he might be able to impose a bunch of sector specific tariffs.
Edit to add: I’ll note for the sake of completeness that Trump has claimed that the existing tariffs will remain in place. But again, his claim is not that the court has no authority over him, just that there are other legal mechanisms that still give him that power. I suspect that this is just Trump mouthing off. But either way, he’s being very careful not to actually defy the court’s authority here, and that’s a distinction that matters.
Who has the power to arrest him for contempt of court?
While we’re on the subject, at what point will SCOTUS get fed up with him?
When he no longer helps their cause (or pocket books)
The way it may work is he does something illegal and someone has to challenge him in court, then the court decides. Then he does it again and the same process has to occur. It takes months each time, effectively enabling him to continue tariffs indefinitely.
