Progressives celebrating the Supreme Court’s anticipated ruling against Donald Trump’s tariffs risk encouraging the consolidation of a dangerous legal doctrine that will be used to defeat their own agenda for decades to come.

That the major questions doctrine may now be used to rein in the Trump administration’s trade policy should give no one comfort, particularly not progressives or liberals. The principal purpose of the major questions doctrine will continue to be blocking climate action, industrial policy, labor protections, and any serious attempt from the Left to challenge entrenched economic elites. Progressives celebrating this ruling risk encouraging the construction of the very legal architecture that will be used to defeat their own agenda for decades to come.

…no matter how hard the liberal justices try to finesse this issue, there is no way they can avoid cosigning an opinion that invokes the major questions doctrine. The doctrine is simply the only route to five, six, or even seven votes against the administration in this case. This means that a defeat for the White House would depend on liberal justices’ formal acceptance of the major questions doctrine for the very first time.