In deciding this case, the Supreme Court will have to take on a broader question: How far does presidential power go?
Legal analysts say it is hard to predict the justices' answer, but a ruling siding with Trump will give him and future White House occupants greater reach.
Specifically, the case concerns tariffs that the Trump administration imposed using the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which the White House has embraced for its speed and flexibility. By declaring an emergency under the law, Trump can issue immediate orders and bypass longer, established processes.
Trump first invoked the law in February to tax goods from China, Mexico and Canada, saying drug trafficking from those countries constituted an emergency.
He deployed it again in April, ordering levies ranging from 10% to 50% on goods from almost every country in the world. This time, he said the US trade deficit - where the US imports more than it exports - posed an "extraordinary and unusual threat".
Those tariffs took hold in fits and starts this summer while the US pushed countries to strike "deals".
Opponents say the law authorises the president to regulate trade but never mentions the word "tariffs", and they contend that only Congress can establish taxes under the US Constitution.
They have also challenged whether the issues cited by the White House, especially the trade deficit, represent emergencies.
Members of Congress from both parties have asserted the Constitution gives them responsibility for creating tariffs, duties and taxes, as well.
More than 200 Democrats in both chambers and one Republican, Senator Lisa Murkowski, filed a brief to the Supreme Court, where they also argued the emergency law did not grant the president power to use tariffs as a tool for gaining leverage in trade talks.
Meanwhile, last week the Senate made a symbolic and bipartisan move to pass three resolutions rejecting Trump's tariffs, including one to end the national emergency he declared. They are not expected to be approved in the House.
Still, business groups said they hoped the rebuke would send a message to the justices.
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