For once, I bring what should hopefully be good news for folks looking to buy or upgrade their PC hardware without having to factor in a bunch of inconveniences they can do nothing about. The RAM crisis is still in full swing, but the US Supreme Court have struck down the majority of President Trump’s tariffs on imports. These tariffs have been another of the key annoyances complicating the state of play when it comes to hardware companies being able to sell you the bits you need at prices which haven’t been driven far above where they should typically be.

As reported by NBC News, the Supreme Court have ruled Trump didn’t have the authority to impose the tariffs on goods coming into the US he enacted last year. The ruling, which ended up in a 6-3 decision against the orange man’s meddling, specifically cited the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act – this being the law Trump cited as giving him the power to bring most of the tariffs – as not actually extending him the power to do so.

As a result, the majority of the tariffs have been struck down, but the Prez could still seek to have some reimposed using other laws. At the very least, it’s an annoying day for the Trumpster, which I think is something we can all take solace in during these trying times. Happy Friday, folks.

While a lot of the words dedicated to these tariffs in the gaming press to this point have naturally focused on console-specific effects, such as the Nintendo Switch 2’s US pre-orders being delayed, PC hardware has also been subject to similar bumps in the road. James noted last year that Razer paused direct sales for its Blade 16 and Blade 18 laptops around the time the tariffs came in, while laptop makers Framework temporarily paused US sales, and memory chip makers Micron were quickly reported to have decided on price hikes.

All in all, the tariffs were a headache no one needed in return for highly questionable benefits that didn’t hold up to close examination. Now, if only the shortage of memory for consumer hardware due to the rampant RAM gobbling of AI companies erecting tons of data centres can also be whisked away into the realm of stuff you no longer have to think about when deciding whether your life would be substantially enriched by a Steam Deck, that’d be great.