WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump sees tariffs — or the threat of them — as a powerful tool to bend nations to his will.

He has used them in an unprecedented way, not only as the underpinning of his economic agenda, but also as the cornerstone of his foreign policy in his second term.

Listen Live to the arguments at the US Supreme Court

He has wielded the import taxes as a threat to secure ceasefiresfrom countries at war. He has used them to browbeat nations into promising to do more to stop people and drugs from flowing across their borders. He has used them, in Brazil’s case, as political pressure because its judicial system prosecuted a former leader who was a Trump ally, and in a recent blowup with Canada, as punishment for a television ad.

Wednesday, the Supreme Court hears

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