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Cheaper retail prices unlikely despite tariff ruling

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March 3, 2026

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Consumers won't see prices coming down despite a Supreme Court rulingthat declared Trump administration tariffs were not constitutional, according to economists, given the many tools that can be used to enact tariffs.

One big reason is that President Donald Trump's administration is making it clear that it will keep enacting tariffs despite the ruling and within hours of the court ruling Trump tapped another legal mechanism to declare a 15% tariff which was then adjusted to 10%, according to a NPR report.

Another big factor is 'stickiness' when it comes to pricing goods — prices change more slowly due to "fundamental factors" that go into pricing strategy. One factor is inventory levels.

The tariffs are "a broad set of experiments, which will reveal to suppliers if their previous prices were profit maximizing or too low," marketing professor emeritus at Harvard Business School Robert Dolan told NPR last year. Suppliers may keep prices high if people keep paying, tariffs or not.

Background

The Supreme Court ruled Feb. 20 to strike down the Trump administration's use of the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose across-the-board tariffs is delivering certainty or uncertainty for the retail industry depending on who is queried about the potential impact going forward.

In a 170-page decision and a 6-3 vote, the court ruled that Trump's use of IEEPA was not lawful, reported Connect CRE.

The ruling comes at around the time of the year when many retailers are starting to plan for the end-of-year holiday season.