Donald Trump, the president of the United States, announced on Sunday that he will not be present at the Supreme Court's impending oral arguments regarding the validity of his international tariffs.
Arguments in the tariffs issue will be heard by the justices on Wednesday. Despite his willingness to attend, Trump told reporters on Air Force One that he did not want to cause a disturbance during the hearing.
After spending a weekend in Florida, Trump declared, "I wanted to go so badly," as he returned to Washington. "I simply don't want to take any action that might lessen the significance of that choice. I don't want to draw too much attention to myself. It's for our nation, not about myself."
In a significant test of one of Trump's most audacious claims of executive power, arguments before the highest U.S. court on Wednesday will focus on the validity of his broad global tariffs, a topic that has been at the heart of his economic and trade agenda.
The Supreme Court heard the Justice Department's appeal of a lower court's decision that Trump had overreached himself in enforcing the majority of his tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977. Twelve U.S. states and a number of companies contested the levies.
Citing years of high taxes imposed by other nations on U.S. imports, Trump defended his use of tariffs to balance international trade flows. He claimed that the stock markets had reached several all-time highs and that his tariffs had raised U.S. revenues.
"If we don't have tariffs, we don't have national security, and the rest of the world would laugh at us because they've used tariffs against us for years and took advantage of us," he stated.
"Many other nations, including China, mistreated us. No longer for years. "We have great national security thanks to tariffs," he stated.
