May. 9, 2026, 6:00 AM EDT

ByJason Page

When asked for comment about the $1,000 price tag to watch the U.S. take on Paraguay in the opening match of the World Cup next month at Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium, President Donald Trump, who loves to gloat about his wealth, said, “I would certainly like to be there, but I wouldn’t pay it either, to be honest with you.” There are probably lots of people who agree with Trump on that point – if only grudgingly.  On its face, paying $1,000 to watch the 14th-ranked U.S squad take on a Paraguay team that’s ranked 40th, may seem absurd. But is it any more absurd than, say, paying $1,000 to watch the NBA’s lowly Sacramento Kings take on Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors for a regular season game?

As the big tournament approaches, Trump has jumped into the debate over how much the experience should cost for those planning to attend one or more of the 104 matches being held across North America. From jacked-up train fares that have been announced in the New York/New Jersey area to outrageous ticket prices on the primary and secondary markets, there have been some predictions that we may have reached the breaking point when it comes to consumers and live entertainment.

But FIFA President Gianni Infantino rationalized World Cup ticket prices that are as high as $32,970 for the July 19 final at MetLife Stadium by asserting that those prices are in line with the marketplace for similarly high-profile events in the U.S. And though many people hemmed and hawed in response, he might be (at least partially) right. Too many Americans already pay exorbitant ticket prices for sporting events that aren’t anywhere near as rare as World Cup matches on our soil.

The Colorado Rockies, for example, haven’t made the playoffs since 2019 and won 43 of 162 games last season. Still, an average of more than 30,000 people showed up per game. If you want a lower infield box seat to see the Rockies play the Arizona Diamondbacks May 15, you will pay $200. Trust me, those seats won’t be empty. And it only gets more expensive from there after you pay for parking and concessions and a foam finger.

Of course, some people are specifically complaining about the role dynamic pricing plays in making tickets for the World Cup more expensive. And while ticket prices that fluctuate real-time based on demand, market conditions and a myriad of other variables are a problem, Americans have generally been less vocal about the fixed ticket prices at big sporting events.

One of the big buzzwords in politics today is affordability. But we grant an exemption to sports. On the morning of the Jan. 19, 2026, college football’sNational Championship game, the lowest tickets were selling for $3,910 and the average price for a ticket was $5,740the most expensive ever. The day before this year’s Super Bowl, tickets on Ticketmaster started at $10,000.

All we hear about is an economy where people can’t afford the simple and most essential things. But who is filling up every single arena and stadium in California for all these pro sports teams? In the NHL, no California team plays to less than 91% capacity. In the NBA, it’s the same story. In Major League Baseball, the Padres and Dodgers are sold out virtually every night for 81 home games. And the woeful Angels average 32,000 fans for home games (although many of those tickets are downright affordable by today’s prices.)

May. 9, 2026, 6:00 AM EDT

ByRay Brescia

The U.S. Supreme Court in February struck down the Trump administration’s “Liberation Day” tariffs as illegal and unconstitutional. Soon thereafter, the administration invoked a different provision of federal law to impose new tariffs. Now, the U.S. Court of International Trade, which has jurisdiction over these issues, has ruled that the administration’s second effort to impose tariffs under this different legal provision is also flawed.

But before American small businesses and consumers can breathe a sigh of relief, the administration is likely to appeal. And instead of using the Supreme Court’s decision as cover for a retreat from tariffs, the administration seems committed to pursuing unpopular policies that are bad for an economy which is also seeing consumer prices spike because of events in the Middle East.

When the Supreme Court ruled against the administration’s first effort at imposing tariffs, it found that the plain text of the Constitution vested Congress with the power to levy tariffs, and the limited authority the legislature had granted the executive under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act did not authorize the tariffs.

Despite the fact that the tariffs had taken roughly $166 billion out of the pockets of domestic business and, by extension, American consumers, the administration pressed ahead to take another swing at tariffs, this time invoking a  provision passed by Congress in the early 1970s to deal with a different kind of crisis, what lawmakers back then described as a “balance-of-payments” deficit.

To understand why the administration’s efforts have failed so far the second time around, one has to understand the context in which Congress passed the provision that the administration invoked when issuing them. At the time Congress passed this authority, what is referred to as Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974the U.S. had just come off the gold standard and the global economy was adjusting to a new economic monetary system. Members of Congress expressed concerns that this new system might harm U.S. economic interests if money did not flow smoothly throughout the global economy, sort of like a game of economic musical chairs.

Fifty years later, the new global economy functions far better than Congress expected it would, and there are no balance-of-payments concerns that could justify the tariffs imposed under Section 122. The language in the statute, written for a different time, empowers the president to impose temporary tariffs when there is a balance-of-payments issue. Making such an argument today is sort of like claiming the decline in the use of leaded gasoline, largely taken out of the economy in the 1970s, is a basis for justifying the new tariffs. More importantly, , and as the Court of International Trade ruled, there simply isn’t a balance-of-payments issue that would justify invoking Section 122.

Admittedly, the language in Section 122 is vague. But that’s where the administration is in a legal bind, one similar to that which it found itself in when it argued in favor of the IEEPA tariffs.

Indeed, either the plain text of Section 122 cannot be invoked unless there is a clear balance-of-payments problem (which there isn’t), o the administration can say the term “balance of payments” means whatever the administration wants it to mean. Under that interpretation, the statute delegates too much authority to the executive, and is unconstitutional. In either case, the administration loses.

Still, even if this effort to impose ill-advised tariffs on American businesses and consumers should ultimately fail once again in the courts, the administration is determined to press on. It has commenced steps designed to impose tariffs under more and different provisions of federal law.

At some point, the administration will likely succeed in imposing new tariffs in a way that is consistent with the laws that might authorize them, even if such tariffs might be a mere shadow of the sweeping tariffs the administration issued in April 2025.

We saw something like this occur in the first Trump administration, when it  issued a ban on travel from predominantly Muslim countries. A series of orders issued by the administration were halted in the courts at firstbut the administration reissued new orders several times in an effort to pass legal and constitutional muster. In June 2018, nearly 18 months after the first such order went into effect, the Supreme Court, in a narrow, 5-4 decisionfound for the administration, concluding that the revised approach was not inconsistent with federal law or the Constitution.

A similar pattern is likely to emerge here. Despite the evidence that the tariffs are unpopular, that the price of goods continues to soar and that the American people are unhappy with the state of the economythe administration seems committed to imposing some kind of tariffs, perhaps for no other reason than to say that it did. Much as it was with the first Trump administration’s travel bans, when it comes to tariffs, the second Trump administration is likely to get something through that the courts will no longer block.

Of course, the administration can always simply go to Congress to seek approval for new tariffs. Such efforts are likely to fail even now, and if the Democrats should retake even one chamber in the 2026 midterms, new tariffs are most certainly doomed.

Perhaps that is why the administration keeps trying its hand at tariffs, hoping it can slip something through the courts. Whether it is through Section 122 or not, it is likely to succeed in some measure in the end.

While the current effort is stalled in the courts for now, at some point, the administration might get tariffs right, regardless of whether they are wrong for American businesses, consumers and the economy. For now, at least the Court of International Trade has given these tariffs the judicial thumbs down. But it seems unlikely the administration is going to take that as the final word on its mission to impose tariffs, regardless of how unpopular they are with the American people.