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President Trump takes on the Judiciary
From Supreme Court rulings on deportations and birthright citizenship to federal troop deployments in Los Angeles, the courts are becoming ground zero for challenges to executive authority. Emily Bazelon tells Ian Bremmer that the judiciary can’t save American democracy alone—and with Congress sidelined and the DOJ increasingly politicized, checks and balances are wearing thin. “The judges cannot save the country from an authoritarian president… by themselves."
GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, the award-winning weekly global affairs series, airs nationwide on US public television stations (check local listings).
New digital episodes of GZERO World are released every Monday on YouTube. Don't miss an episode: subscribe to GZERO's YouTube channel and turn on notifications (🔔).
Was it legal for Trump to deploy federal troops to Los Angeles?
In this clip from a larger interview for the latest episode of GZERO World, New York Times Magazine staff writer and Yale Law School fellow Emily Bazelon sits down with Ian Bremmer to unpack President Trump’s unprecedented decision to send National Guard troops and US Marines into Los Angeles without the governor’s consent. She argues the administration may have intentionally provoked the unrest through targeted immigration raids in the Latino neighborhoods of a densely populated city.
As California Governor Gavin Newsom sues the federal government, Bazelon makes clear that legal recourse may be limited. Even if Newsom wins, she says, Trump could comply with consultation requirements after the fact and proceed as planned. “The judges cannot save the country from an authoritarian president... by themselves,” Bazelon warns.
GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, the award-winning weekly global affairs series, airs nationwide on US public television stations (check local listings).
New digital episodes of GZERO World are released every Monday on YouTube. Don't miss an episode: subscribe to GZERO's YouTube channel and turn on notifications (🔔).
US President Donald Trump is joined by Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick and Vice President JD Vance while announcing a trade agreement with the United Kingdom in the Oval Office on May 8, 2025.
Analyzing the US trade court’s ruling against Trump’s tariffs
On Wednesday evening, the US Court of International Trade came down with a seismic ruling: President Donald Trump could not impose his “reciprocal” tariffs, which include his 10% across-the-board levy and the extra duties he announced on “Liberation Day.”
What does that mean for the president’s trade agenda? For politics in Washington? And for businesses? We asked several of the best minds in the world from Eurasia group, and here’s what they had to say.
So, let’s start with the major questions for Trump: What is the impact of the ruling? What tariffs will remain in place? Will he fight back?
The ruling blocks Trump from using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to implement blanket tariffs, a reminder that the US political system still impose some restraints on the president, according to Eurasia Group’s Head of Research Jon Lieber.
- “Even though Trump continues to shatter Washington norms and is moving so fast the courts can barely keep up, there are still meaningful checks on his power that will be brought by the courts.”
The ruling does leave in place Trump’s other tariffs on specific sectors, like the ones on aluminum, auto parts, and steel, as well as the upcoming duties on pharmaceuticals. These sectoral tariffs are more complicated to implement, though, says Eurasia Group US analyst Noah Daponte-Smith.
- “Sectorals focus on specific sectors and require a full investigation beforehand. You can’t just declare them out of the blue.”
Trump will fight the court’s ruling – White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller has already decried it as “judicial coup.” A federal appeals court temporarily reinstated the tariffs on Thursday, pending the administration’s appeal. A big reason for Trump’s response is that there are many benefits to the president from introducing new tariffs via IEEPA, per Robert Kahn, Eurasia Group’s managing director of Global Macro.
- “He’s turned to it often because of the flexibility, the leverage it gives, [and the] ability to basically use it in a wide variety of circumstances.”
Even if the ruling is upheld, though, Lieber predicts that Trump “will likely find other, narrower and more administratively burdensome ways to implement tariffs.” All to say, Trump’s trade war isn’t done yet.
How will this ruling affect bilateral trade negotiations involving the US?
Several countries have tried negotiating a trade deal with the United States since Trump announced his “reciprocal” tariffs on April 2. The United Kingdom nabbed one earlier this month.
But the court’s ruling could cut Trump’s leverage.
An interesting case in point is Japan, which has held regular talks with the US over a trade deal in recent weeks. Tokyo’s extra leverage means it will be more cautious about what it offers to Washington, according to David Boling, Eurasia Group’s director for Japan and Asian trade.
- “Japan will be more careful about making any big concessions, until the legality of IEEPA is decided. Likewise, US negotiators are likely to move cautiously, waiting for the legal clouds to clear.”
South Korea is also negotiating with the United States over a trade deal, but the talks may become less urgent, per Eurasia Group regional expert Jeremy Chan.
- “I think it will marginally decrease the pressure on South Korea to get a deal, and the urgency over a July 8 timeline is also gone, … so we can expect somewhat slower deliberations but still continued interest on both sides to agree to something (likely after Japan).”
What does the court ruling mean for businesses?
Markets edged up in response to the court ruling, on expectations that it would reduce the chances of an economically disruptive trade war. Kahn, though, remains skeptical of the long-term benefits to businesses and markets, saying the ruling “adds an additional layer of uncertainty to [investment].”
- “I don’t think there’s a clear consensus yet on what happens [next]. I do think it’s important to emphasize that the president remains committed to his tariff agenda, and we have to assume that he will fall back on the other tools in his arsenal.”
National Rally leader Marine Le Pen poses prior to an interview on the evening news broadcast of French TV channel TF1, in Boulogne-Billancourt, outside Paris, France, on March 31, 2025.
Can France’s Marine Le Pen run again?
National Rally leader Marine Le Pen was found guilty by a French court on Monday for embezzling European Parliament funds. She was sentenced to four years (with two years suspended and the remainder under house arrest with electronic monitoring) and faces a five-year ban from running for public office.
Coup de grâce? Le Pen shared her anger with French voters. “Like you, I’m scandalized, indignant, but this indignation, this feeling of injustice, is an additional push to the fight that I fight for [the voters],” she said on French television Monday night.
Le Pen’s lawyer said she will appeal the decision, which will likely lead to a retrial in 2026 — months before the 2027 presidential election. Le Pen can also petition the Constitutional Council to review her case and ultimately decide her eligibility. Last week, this court ruled that local politicians can be barred from office immediately if they are convicted of a crime — but this won’t apply to national figures like the National Rally’s longtime leader.
“Le Pen will now seek to make her appeal explicitly political, arguing before the Constitutional Council that she is too important a politician to ban and that doing so would be an affront to French democracy,” said Rahman. Even so, her route back to eligibility won’t be easy.
Next in line. If Le Pen is ultimately barred from running, National Rally President Jordan Bardella would be the most likely candidate to succeed her. The clean-shaven millennial, who grew up in the Paris suburbs, has tried to expand the party’s tent by courting younger voters and distancing the party from Le Pen’s father, the Holocaust-denying founder of National Rally.Workers of the Judiciary in Mexico City, Mexico, on October 15, 2024, protest outside the National Palace in the capital against judicial reform in Mexico. They reject the bill promoted by the former president of Mexico, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, which proposes the election by popular vote of judges, magistrates, and ministers of the Supreme Court starting in 2025.
Mexican Congress defangs the judiciary as majority of Supreme Court resigns
Eight out of Mexico’s 11 Supreme Court justices announced late Wednesday that they would resign their positions in opposition to a judicial overhaul that requires them to stand for election, while at the same time Congress passed new legislation that will prohibit legal challenges to constitutional changes. With the opposition in tatters and the courts castrated, President Claudia Sheinbaum’s Morena party has free rein to implement its far-reaching agenda, known as the Fourth Transformation.
Experts say the legislation means Mexico effectively has no checks on presidential and legislative power, given Morena’s coalition supermajority in Congress. The opposition PRI and PAN parties are deeply unpopular and tarnished by corruption, with slim chances of recovering popular support before the midterm elections in 2027. With a strong popular mandate to boot, Morena is on stable ground to pursue whatever projects it wants to prioritize, no matter how potentially disruptive.
Seven of the eight resigning justices will serve through August 2025, with their replacements set to be elected in June, while the eighth has reached retirement and will leave his seat on Nov. 30. The justices made clear their resignations are not meant to legitimize the judicial overhaul, but they stood to lose their pensions if they did not resign or declare their candidacy by Oct. 31.
What’s the next signpost? All eyes will be on the Supreme Court on Nov. 5 (the same day as the US election), when it is expected to discuss a draft ruling on the judicial overhaul that requires justices to stand for election. They may find portions of the overhaul unconstitutional, but with Wednesday’s legislation, that point is rendered moot.