I've seen my share of "well ackshually, this cool technical hack will circumvent the law and outsmart the judges", but thought judges wouldn't fall for such bullshit. Now, I'm not so sure. This is the stupidest thing I've seen in a long time.
This is not quite like the stereotypical case of that, as the legislature first said it wants something to happen one way, and then—later and with a different set of lawmakers, but still—the same institution effectively said that, on second thought, no, just in this case it wants it to work another way. Which seems like a simple case of the legislature changing its mind, something it should definitely be able to do as a matter of course?..
And I mean, both of the houses participated in the first part but only the lower house in the second (AFAICT), so maybe there’s something iffy about that for example. Then of course there are all the suggestions about how the statute these tariffs were ostensibly instituted under (the IEEPA) may not actually authorize tariffs; or that if it does authorize that, then it effectively amounts to the legislature delegating all of its power over tariffs to the executive, which does not entirely sound in tune with the Constitution.
But you see how this starts to look like something you’d want to consult an actual expert on constitutional law about, not dismiss out of hand or listen to random opinions on the Internet on. It’s not immediately clear what even a perfect court would decide here.