Who is Neal Katyal? Indian-origin lawyer who helped strike down Trump’s global tariffs | World News

3 min readNew DelhiFeb 21, 2026 10:30 PM The US Supreme Court Friday struck down Donald Trump’s sweeping global tariffs, ruling that the President exceeded his authority when he imposed duties using a law reserved for national emergencies.ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW VIDEO
“The idea that we have a system that self-corrects, that allows us to say ‘You might be the most powerful man in the world but you still can’t break the Constitution.’ That to me is what today is about,” said Neal Katyal, the Indian-origin lawyer who was at the centre case, arguing about the illegality of the levies on behalf of small businesses.
“One of the great things about the American system is what just happened today. I was able to go to court – the son of immigrants – able to go to court and say on behalf of American small businesses, ‘Hey, this President is acting illegally,’” he said in an interview with MS Now.
The conservative-majority bench effectively restored the US Congress’s primacy in trade policy, reminding the separation of powers – between the legislature, executive, and judiciary – in decision-making.
“I was able to present my case, have them ask really hard questions at me, it was a really intense oral argument and at the end of it, they voted and we won,” said Keytal.
“Victory,” Katyal wrote on X after the verdict.
In a post on X in November, Katyal posted a photograph of a traditional ‘Kada’ (bangle) placed on a ‘Brief for Private Respondents’ related to the Supreme Court tariff case against Trump.
Who is Neal Katyal?

Neal Katyal is a partner in the Washington DC office of Milbank LLP and a member of the firm’s Litigation & Arbitration Group. He has argued 54 cases before the US Supreme Court. He focuses on appellate and complex litigation.
He was born in 1970 in Chicago to a paediatrician mother and an engineer father, both of whom immigrated from India. He graduated from Yale Law School.
Katyal clerked for Guido Calabresi of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit as well as for Justice Stephen G. Breyer of the US Supreme Court.
He has also served as a law professor at Georgetown University Law Centre for over two decades. According to his profile on the Milbank website, “he was one of the youngest professors to have received tenure and a chaired professorship in the university’s hory.”
He has also served as a visiting professor at Harvard and Yale law schools.
He also served in the Deputy Attorney General’s Office at the Justice Department as National Security Advisor and as Special Assant to the Deputy Attorney General during 1998-1999.
The Chief Justice of the United States appointed him in 2011 and 2014 to the Advisory Committee on Federal Appellate Rules.

(With inputs from PTI)
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