President Donald Trump announced he will enact a new 10 percent global tariff following the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down many of his original tariffs on Friday.
Trump said at a press conference he will maintain many existing tariffs and impose the new tariffs under a different statute. The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, rejected the administration’s authority to implement tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
The announcement seeks to subvert the court’s decision and keep his tariff policies intact.
“Effective immediately, all national security tariffs under Section 232, and existing Section 301 tariffs — they’re existing, they’re there — remain in place, fully in place, and in full force and effect,” Trump said. “Today, I will sign an order to impose a 10 percent global tariff under Section 122, over and above our normal tariffs already being charged. And we’re also initiating several Section 301, and other investigations, to protect our country from unfair trading practices of other countries and companies.”
While Trump could have gone as high as 15 percent under Section 122, the move will allow him to reimpose his sweeping global baseline tariffs for 150 days. It would take Congress to extend it beyond that time.
In the short term, it would allow the president to at least temporarily reimpose some level of his tariffs that the high court struck down. Trump said Friday he believed the new tariffs would go into effect in three days.
Yet, it won’t allow the president the kind of flexibility he has wielded under the emergency powers law. By statute, the tariff must be “nondiscriminatory,” meaning the U.S. can’t give breaks to certain trading partners and not others.
Trump is also launching investigations into the trading practices of specific countries — though he declined to specify which ones — which would allow him to impose higher tariffs on trading partners, like Japan, the European Union and Canada.
Trump said the investigations would take place over a period of months.
In the meantime, Trump has maintained a swath of tariffs on specific industries, including automobiles and auto parts, steel and aluminum, copper and softwood lumber. Those tariffs have been a significant factor in pushing countries toward trade deals and could play a factor in keeping those deals intact.
“We have a lot of tools out there,” said Jamieson Greer, the U.S. trade representative. “You can look forward in the coming days and weeks to seeing all of that come out. And we’re going to keep continuity in the program.”
Gregory Svirnovskiy contributed to this report.
