Statutory interpretation is the judicial process of determining what a law means and how it applies to a specific situation. Courts can't simply read words and stop — the same phrase can mean different things depending on when it was written, what problem Congress was solving, and how it has been applied since. Courts use several main approaches: textualism (what do the words say, taken at their ordinary meaning?), purposivism (what problem was Congress trying to fix?), and legislative history review (what did committee reports and floor debates say Congress intended?). The approach a judge chooses can flip the outcome.
The Section 122 tariff litigation is a live example. Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 authorizes a 15% tariff for up to 150 days when the president finds a "large and serious" deficit in the United States balance of payments. In 2025, President Trump invoked Section 122 to impose a 10% tariff on all imports. The Court of International Trade struck it down on textual grounds: the statute's 150-day ceiling and 15% cap showed Congress wanted a narrow, temporary emergency tool, not open-ended authority. The Federal Circuit disagreed — or at least found enough ambiguity to stay the ruling while the appeal proceeds.
People often treat statutory interpretation as a neutral, apolitical exercise. It isn't. The method a judge applies — and the breadth of authority it finds — determines whether a president can act unilaterally or must go back to Congress. When courts read ambiguous statutes broadly, they expand executive power. When they read them narrowly, they push the president back to the legislative process. That's not just a legal debate: it's a question about where democratic authority sits.
How courts read a law determines who has power under it. The Section 122 dispute shows this directly: two federal courts read the same statute and reached opposite conclusions about whether the president had authority to impose a 10% tariff on every import into the United States. The Court of International Trade found the statute's text too narrow to support that action. The Federal Circuit found the question close enough to issue a stay. Same words, different interpretive approach, opposite real-world consequences — billions of dollars in tariffs collected or not collected, depending on which reading holds.
Many people think statutory interpretation just means "read the law." Courts do read the law, but they disagree constantly about HOW to read it — and the disagreement is substantive, not technical. A textualist and a purposivist can read the same sentence in the Trade Act of 1974 and reach opposite conclusions about whether the president may impose a 10% surcharge. The debate isn't about unclear writing; it's about which interpretive approach has the most democratic legitimacy, and that question has been contested since Marbury v. Madison.
How courts read a law determines who has power under it. The Section 122 dispute shows this directly: two federal courts read the same statute and reached opposite conclusions about whether the president had authority to impose a 10% tariff on every import into the United States. The Court of International Trade found the statute's text too narrow to support that action. The Federal Circuit found the question close enough to issue a stay. Same words, different interpretive approach, opposite real-world consequences — billions of dollars in tariffs collected or not collected, depending on which reading holds.
Many people think statutory interpretation just means "read the law." Courts do read the law, but they disagree constantly about HOW to read it — and the disagreement is substantive, not technical. A textualist and a purposivist can read the same sentence in the Trade Act of 1974 and reach opposite conclusions about whether the president may impose a 10% surcharge. The debate isn't about unclear writing; it's about which interpretive approach has the most democratic legitimacy, and that question has been contested since Marbury v. Madison.