Administration officials are warning of calamity if courts remove the sweeping tariffs President Donald Trump imposed on emergency grounds.

Trump has used the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to place tariffs on goods from countries worldwide. The act grants the president broad powers to regulate transactions without the approval of Congress as needed for national security purposes, but it has not been used in the past for broad-based tariffs. Trump’s use of the law for tariffs is now being challenged.

Devin Watkins, an attorney at the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute, told the Washington Examiner that he thinks the courts will strike down the tariffs imposed under IEEPA.

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“So IEEPA has never been used for tariffs like this before, and the words in the statute don’t actually use the word ‘tariff,’” Watkins said. “It allows a lot of things that the president can do, the president can regulate, and it can prevent certain articles from coming into the United States, but tariffs just aren’t listed as powers.”

In May, the U.S. Court of International Trade invalidated Trump’s tariffs that he imposed under IEEPA. However, the order has remained pending appeal, meaning that the order is not being enforced while the ongoing appeal by the Trump administration. However, the fear remains that the appeal will work up to the Supreme Court, and Trump’s use of IEEPA to impose tariffs will end.

And the Trump administration appears to be worried about the notion that the courts could gut the tariffs.

Trump and his allies have argued that, because of the large amount of tariff revenue coming in, such a ruling could send the U.S. into an economic tailspin and even usher in a new Great Depression.

“If a Radical Left Court ruled against us at this late date, in an attempt to bring down or disturb the largest amount of money, wealth creation and influence the U.S.A. has ever seen, it would be impossible to ever recover, or pay back, these massive sums of money and honor,” Trump wrote on social media.

There is no way America could recover from such a judicial tragedy,” he added.

Likewise, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Tuesday that the Supreme Court will find it more difficult to rule against the administration on tariffs, given the revenue they have been bringing into the United States.

“The more money coming in, it gets harder and harder for SCOTUS to rule against us,” Bessent said on Fox Business.

One of the main cases at play, V.O.S. Selections Inc. v. Trump, in which the CIT ruled in favor of the plaintiff, argues that Trump’s use of IEEPA goes beyond his presidential authority. The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments on the case late last month, and a decision is forthcoming. The matter could then head to the Supreme Court.

The Trump Justice Department also filed a brief warning of potentially dire economic fallout this week should the courts reverse Trump’s tariffs.

Bill Reinsch is an expert in trade policy with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who served for 15 years as president of the National Foreign Trade Council.

He said that one argument he expects the courts to focus on regarding the tariffs is the extent to which Congress can delegate its powers without guardrails to the White House.

“There are areas that the court has decided that Congress simply can’t give away, because the Constitution gives the authority to them, and this is one of those cases, Article 1, Section 8, and that they can’t just surrender it without limitations,” Reinsch told the Washington Examiner.

Notably, while the administration might fear the Supreme Court striking down Trump’s use of IEEPA, Reinsch said that the tariffs will remain until that happens.

“The courts have allowed these tariffs to stay to effect, and I think they will until there’s a final decision one way or the other,” he said.

Even if the courts disallow the use of IEEPA, Reinsch predicted that Trump would try to keep some of the tariffs in place because they were part of trade negotiations.

For instance, Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen reached a trade deal in Scotland late last month. Europe agreed to accept 15% import tariffs on most goods with exceptions. While much higher than pre-Trump, that number is down from the 30% level threatened by the U.S.

Reinsch said the administration could argue that those tariffs no longer fall under IEEPA because they were negotiated as part of trade agreements.

“That doesn’t cover everybody, because a lot of countries just have tariffs assigned, and unless he negotiates a lot more agreements, that argument wouldn’t apply across the board, but it would apply to the biggest countries,” Reinsch said. Even in those cases, he said, further litigation would be likely.

Jon Toomey is the President of the Coalition for a Prosperous America, one of the leading groups advocating economic protectionism and the strategic use of tariffs. He told the Washington Examiner that his group strongly disagrees with the U.S. Court of International Trade.

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Toomey also said that his group agrees with the administration’s warnings of “financial catastrophe” should the ruling be upheld and the tariffs removed.

He said that Congress should quickly codify the baseline tariffs Trump imposed worldwide using IEEPA, because even a slight possibility of an adverse court ruling is “too much risk given the consequences.”