TODAY’S GLOBAL TRADE story

Trump tariffs face stiff scrutiny at Supreme Court

What happened
The Supreme Court yesterday appeared skeptical of President Donald Trump’s authority to unilaterally levy widespread tariffs on foreign countries. The case — a challenge by states and small businesses to Trump’s “reciprocal” and fentanyl-related import taxes — was the first significant test of the president’s second-term expansive claim of power to get a full hearing before the high court.

Who said what
The court’s three liberal justices “were expected to be critical of Trump’s tariffs, but several of the court’s conservatives joined them in sharply questioning” Solicitor General D. John Sauer, said The Washington Post. The court’s decision “could affect global trade, the U.S. economy, inflation, businesses and the wallets of every American,” so the “stakes could hardly be higher.”

The justices are considering Trump’s use of the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which doesn’t mention tariffs. The “imposition of taxes on Americans” has “always been the core power of Congress,” Chief Justice John Roberts said. Justice Neil Gorsuch expressed concern about the “gradual but continual accretion of power in the executive branch and away from the people’s elected representatives,” saying the “power to reach into the pockets of the American people is just different.” Sauer argued that the issue was Trump’s ability to regulate international commerce, and the billions in tariff revenue was “only incidental.” Hours later, The New York Times said, Trump “bragged at an event in Florida about the revenue that tariffs have raised.”

What next?
Trump would “still have plenty of options to keep taxing imports aggressively even if the court rules against him,” The Associated Press said. He just couldn’t use the “boundless authority he’s claimed” under the 1977 law.

TODAY’S INTERNATIONAL Story

France targets Shein over weapons, sex dolls

What happened
The French government yesterday launched proceedings to suspend access to Shein’s online marketplace until the Asian fast-fashion giant can prove it no longer sells illicit items discovered on its site, including “Class A” weapons and sex dolls resembling children. The Finance Ministry said Shein had 48 hours to demonstrate that illegal products were scrubbed from its marketplace, while the Interior Ministry asked a court to shut down the site in France.

Who said what
The moves against the Singapore-based Chinese retailer were announced “little more than an hour after Shein opened its first physical store in the world,” on the sixth floor of the iconic Paris department store BHV Marais, the BBC said. “Shoppers queued to get into the store, while protesters screamed ’Shame!’ at them.” Shein said earlier this week it had barred all sex dolls from its platform and temporarily suspended its “adult products” category and listings from third-party vendors, pending an internal investigation.

But even before the “backlash over the sex doll listings,” The Associated Press said, Shein’s decision to “launch its first physical store in the heart of France’s fashion capital had faced criticism from environmental groups, Paris City Hall and France’s ready-to-wear industry.” The BHV Marais opening has “stirred broader fears in France about the impact cheaply made goods sourced from China will have on the country’s economy,” The Wall Street Journal said.

What next?
Shein’s e-store cleanup is “unlikely to stanch the escalating scrutiny of its business practices in France,” the Journal said. Paris prosecutors said they are investigating the site, along with Temu, AliExpress and Wish, over violent, pornographic or “undignified messages” accessible by minors.

It’s not all bad

In Austria, electricity transmission towers could soon be transformed into works of public art. The Austrian Power Grid is working on a project for the country’s nine federal states to each have its own “style of pylon in the form of an animal symbolic to the region’s identity,” said New Atlas. For Burgeland, it would be a stork, “reflecting the bird’s well-known annual visits,” while Lower Austria would have the stag, due to the area’s “densely wooded” Alpine hills.

Under the radar

The Southern Ocean is holding in a ‘burp’

Heat trapped in the Southern Ocean could be “burped” up into the atmosphere and cause climate change–like effects, even after humans stopped greenhouse gas emissions, according to a study in the journal AGU Advances. This burp “originates from heat that has previously accumulated under global warming in the deep Southern Ocean, and emerges to the ocean surface via deep convection,” the researchers said.

The result could be a “renewed pulse of warming from the maritime zone, without any new CO2 entering the atmosphere,” said Daily Galaxy. The study showed that this release would occur even “after several centuries of net negative emissions levels and gradual global cooling,” Eos said, potentially leading to a “decadal- to centennial-scale period of warming.”

The released heat will not be distributed evenly around the world, the study said. The effects would be “greatest and longest-lasting in the Southern Hemisphere, suggesting a greater impact on today's more vulnerable countries of the global south.” The Southern Ocean will eventually have a “greatly increased capacity to absorb shortwave solar radiation, since much of the sea ice that historically reflected the heat has melted,” said Science Alert.

The potential for this “burp” actually “assumes a rosy climate future,” said Popular Mechanics. Currently, we “are still very much in the midst of the struggle of realizing this net-negative carbon world.” This study, the magazine added, proves that “burning fossil fuels with reckless abandon for centuries will have lasting impacts long after the green revolution finally takes hold.”

On this day

November 6, 1947

“Meet the Press” debuted on NBC. Through 12 moderators and decades of history, NBC’s flagship Sunday political talk show has become the longest-running program on American television. The show’s current moderator, Kristin Welker, took the helm in 2023.

TODAY’S newspaperS

‘Left is lifted’

“Left is lifted by verdict of voters,” The Washington Post says on Thursday’s front page. “Democrats see path to revival following big wins,” The Wall Street Journal says. As “Democrats claw back,” a “renewal of promise for one side, a sign of peril for the other,” says USA Today. “Key justices cast a skeptical eye on Trump’s tariffs,” says The New York Times. “Florida attorney general goes to bat against transparency in Trump library spat,” says the Miami Herald. “Use of force under fire” in Chicago as judge weighs “Border Patrol’s aggressive tactics,” the Chicago Tribune says. “Day care despair” as “federal agents dragged teacher out of Spanish immersion center,” the Chicago Sun-Times says.

► See the newspaper front pages

Tall tale

Chewed out

London’s Metropolitan Police wants to remind Britons they should only call 999, the country’s emergency services number, to report emergencies, like crimes and life-threatening situations. And they found a sort of spokesperson for their message: a man who called 999 to report his missing Uber Eats order. “This is not a life or death emergency,” an exasperated dispatcher told the man in a recording of the call released by the Met to promote its campaign.

Morning Report was written and edited by Nadia Croes, Catherine Garcia, Scott Hocker, Anya Jaremko-Greenwold, Justin Klawans, Rafi Schwartz, Peter Weber and Kari Wilkin, with illustrations by Stephen Kelly and Julia Wytrazek.