While a majority of the Supreme Court held on Feb. 20 that President Donald Trump cannot impose tariffs using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), Justice Brett Kavanaugh said that he might be able to do so using other laws.

“Although I firmly disagree with the court’s holding today, the decision might not substantially constrain a president’s ability to order tariffs going forward,” Kavanaugh wrote in a dissenting opinion that was joined by Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas.

“In essence, the court today concludes that the president checked the wrong statutory box by relying on IEEPA rather than another statute to impose these tariffs.”

Kavanaugh said Trump could use other federal statutes to impose most, if not all, the tariffs, “albeit perhaps with a few additional procedural steps.”

He cited Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which says: “No action shall be taken ... to decrease or eliminate the duty or other import restrictions on any article” if the president determines that it would threaten national security.

That determination is made by the president after coordinating with the secretaries of defense and commerce.

He also pointed to Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, which lets the president impose up to 50 percent tariffs if it serves public interest or when another country places “any unreasonable charge, exaction, regulation, or limitation which is not equally enforced upon the like articles of every foreign country.”

Finally, Kavanaugh said the president relies on sections of the Trade Act of 1974 to impose tariffs to prevent “imminent and significant depreciation of the dollar in foreign exchange markets,” or to correct trade imbalances and import competition, among other situations.

Those tariffs are capped at 15 percent, and last up to 150 days, unless extended by Congress.

In the meantime, Kavanaugh added, the United States might have to refund billions of dollars in previous tariff payments, a process that he said is “likely to be a mess.”

Trump said in a press briefing following the ruling: “The good news is that there are methods, practices, statutes, and authorities ... that are even stronger than the IEEPA tariffs available to me as President of the United States. Other alternatives will be used to replace the ones that the court incorrectly rejected.”

Kavanaugh, Thomas, and Alito also dissented from the majority’s ruling.

They held that the IEEPA does allow the president to impose tariffs in emergencies.

Thomas, in his dissenting opinion, noted that the text of the law authorizes the president to regulate importation.

“Throughout American history, the authority to ‘regulate importation’ has been understood to include the authority to impose duties on imports,” he wrote.

He also pointed out that the Constitution forbids Congress from delegating “core legislative powers” to the president—but not other powers such as imposing tariffs.

“Early Congresses often delegated to the president power to regulate foreign commerce, including through duties on imports,” he wrote.

The three justices also disagreed with Chief Justice John Roberts’s application of the “major questions doctrine,” which says federal agencies can’t enact rules unless Congress explicitly authorizes them to do so.

Kavanaugh wrote that Roberts, by requiring the IEEPA to contain the words “tariff,” “duty,” or “tax,” was using a “magic words test,” an approach the Supreme Court had already rejected in previous cases.

“In sum, under the major questions doctrine as the court has applied it, this should be a straightforward case. Congress supplied clear authorization for the president to impose tariffs under IEEPA,” he said.

He also said major questions do not apply to this case for a separate reason: Tariffs are a foreign affairs issue, and the Supreme Court has never applied the major questions doctrine to a foreign affairs statute.

“In short, in the foreign affairs context, this court has never before super-imposed the major questions doctrine (or any similar canon or principle) onto ordinary statutory interpretation to place a thumb on the scale against the president,” Kavanaugh wrote.