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  "path": "/news/1974599/trump-vows-10pc-global-tariff-after-court-rebuke",
  "publishedAt": "2026-02-20T19:19:45.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.dawn.com",
  "tags": [
    "World",
    "sweeping tariffs",
    "lower court’s decision",
    "“reciprocal” tariffs",
    "China, Canada and Mexico",
    "India’s purchases of Russian oil"
  ],
  "textContent": "After the US Supreme Court struck down on Friday President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs that he pursued under a law meant for use in national emergencies, he announced that he was imposing an extra global tariff of 10 percent on US trade partners.\n\nSpeaking to reporters after the Supreme Court ruled his sweeping global tariffs illegal, Trump said he would impose tariffs using alternative authorities.\n\n“The Supreme Court’s decision today made a president’s ability to both regulate trade and impose tariffs more powerful and more crystal clear, rather than less,” he said.\n\n“I’m ashamed of certain members of the court, absolutely ashamed, for not having the courage to do what’s right for our country,” Trump added.\n\nInsisting the the ruling left him “more powerful”, he said: “In order to protect our country, a president can actually charge more tariffs than I was charging in the past.”\n\nTrump has leveraged tariffs — taxes on imported goods — as a key economic and foreign policy tool.\n\nThey have been central to a global trade war that Trump initiated after he began his second term as president, one that has alienated trading partners, affected financial markets and caused global economic uncertainty.\n\nTrump’s tariffs were forecast to generate over the next decade trillions of dollars in revenue for the United States, which possesses the world’s largest economy.\n\nTrump’s administration has not provided tariffs collection data since December 14.\n\n## Supreme Court’s ruling\n\nThe justices, in a 6-3 ruling, upheld a lower court’s decision that the Republican president’s use of this 1977 law exceeded his authority. The Supreme Court reached its conclusion in a legal challenge by businesses affected by the tariffs and 12 US states, most of them Democratic-governed, against Trump’s unprecedented use of this law to unilaterally impose the import taxes.\n\nPenn-Wharton Budget Model economists estimated on Friday that the amount collected in Trump’s tariffs based on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act stood at more than $175 billion. And that amount likely would need to be refunded with a Supreme Court ruling against the IEEPA-based tariffs.\n\nThe US Constitution grants Congress, not the president, the authority to issue taxes and tariffs. But Trump instead turned to a statutory authority by invoking IEEPA to impose the tariffs on nearly every US trading partner without the approval of Congress.\n\nThe court noted that “had Congress intended to convey the distinct and extraordinary power to impose tariffs” with IEEPA, “it would have done so expressly, as it consistently has in other tariff statutes.”\n\nThe Supreme Court’s three liberal justices joined three conservatives in Friday’s ruling, which upheld lower court decisions that tariffs Trump imposed under IEEPA were illegal.\n\nTrump heaped praise on Brett Kavanaugh, the only justice he nominated who voted with him. Kavanaugh was joined in his dissent by fellow conservatives Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.\n\nChief Justice John Roberts, in delivering his opinion, said “IEEPA contains no reference to tariffs or duties.”\n\nTrump has imposed some additional tariffs under other laws that are not at issue in this case. Based on government data from October to mid-December, those represent about a third of the revenue from Trump-imposed tariffs.\n\nIEEPA lets a president regulate commerce in a national emergency.\n\nTrump became the first president to use IEEPA to impose tariffs, one of the many ways he has aggressively pushed the boundaries of executive authority since he returned to office in areas as varied as his crackdown on immigration, the firing of federal agency officials, domestic military deployments and military operations overseas.\n\nTrump described the tariffs as vital for US economic security, predicting that the country would be defenseless and ruined without them.\n\nTrump, in November, told reporters that without his tariffs “the rest of the world would laugh at us because they’ve used tariffs against us for years and took advantage of us”.\n\nTrump said the United States was abused by other countries, including China, the second-largest economy.\n\nAfter the Supreme Court heard arguments in the case in November, Trump said he would consider alternatives if it ruled against him on tariffs, telling reporters that “we’ll have to develop a ‘game two’ plan”.\n\nTreasury Secretary Scott Bessent and other administration officials said the United States would invoke other legal justifications to retain as many of Trump’s tariffs as possible.\n\nAmong others, these include a statutory provision that permits tariffs on imported goods that threaten US national security and another that allows retaliatory actions, including tariffs against trading partners that the Office of the US Trade Representative determines have used unfair trade practices against American exporters.\n\nNone of these alternatives offered the flexibility and blunt-force dynamics that IEEPA provided Trump, and may not be able to replicate the full scope of his tariffs in a timely fashion.\n\nTrump’s ability to impose tariffs instantaneously on any trading partner’s goods under the aegis of some form of declared national emergency raised his leverage over other countries.\n\nIt brought world leaders scrambling to Washington to secure trade deals that often included pledges of billions of dollars in investments or other offers of enhanced market access for US companies.\n\nBut Trump’s use of tariffs as a cudgel in US foreign policy has succeeded in antagonising numerous countries, including those long considered among the closest US allies.\n\nIEEPA historically had been used for imposing sanctions on enemies or freezing their assets, not to impose tariffs. The law does not specifically mention the word tariffs.\n\nTrump’s Justice Department had argued that IEEPA allows tariffs by authorising the president to “regulate” imports to address emergencies.\n\nThe Congressional Budget Office has estimated that if all current tariffs stay in place, including the IEEPA-based duties, they would generate about $300bn annually over the next decade.\n\nTotal US net customs duty receipts reached a record $195bn in fiscal 2025, which ended on September 30, according to US Treasury Department data.\n\nOn April 2, on a date Trump labeled “Liberation Day”, the president announced what he called “reciprocal” tariffs on goods imported from most US trading partners, invoking IEEPA to address what he called a national emergency related to US trade deficits, though the United States already had run trade deficits for decades.\n\nIn February and March of 2025, Trump invoked IEEPA to impose tariffs on China, Canada and Mexico, citing the trafficking of the often-abused painkiller fentanyl and illicit drugs into the United States as a national emergency.\n\nTrump has wielded his tariffs to extract concessions and renegotiate trade deals, and as a weapon to punish countries that draw his ire on non-trade political matters. These have ranged from Brazil’s prosecution of former president Jair Bolsonaro, India’s purchases of Russian oil that help fund Russia’s war in Ukraine, and an anti-tariffs ad by Canada’s Ontario province.\n\nIEEPA was passed by Congress and signed by Democratic President Jimmy Carter. In passing the measure, Congress placed additional limits on the president’s authority compared to a predecessor law.\n\nThe cases on tariffs before the justices involved three lawsuits.\n\nThe Washington-based US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit sided with five small businesses that import goods in one challenge, and the states of Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Oregon and Vermont in another.\n\nSeparately, a Washington-based federal judge sided with a family-owned toy company called Learning Resources.\n\n## Reactions to Supreme Court’s ruling\n\nThe EU said on Friday that it was studying the US Supreme Court ruling.\n\n“We take note of the ruling … and are analysing it carefully,” EU trade spokesman Olof Gill said.\n\n“We remain in close contact with the US Administration as we seek clarity on the steps they intend to take in response to this ruling,” he added.\n\n“Businesses on both sides of the Atlantic depend on stability and predictability in the trading relationship”.\n\nMeanwhile, the British government spokesperson said Britain planned to work with the US to see how the overturning of Donald Trump’s tariffs by the US Supreme Court would affect the trade deal between the two countries.\n\n“We will work with the administration to understand how the ruling will affect tariffs for the UK and the rest of the world,” the spokesperson said, adding that the UK expects its “privileged trading position with the US to continue”.\n\nThe Canadian minister responsible for US trade said the US Supreme Court’s ruling affirms that the levies were “unjustified”.\n\nInternational Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc noted, however, that tariffs causing the most pain in Canada — sector-specific measures affecting the steel, aluminum and auto industries — remained in force despite the ruling, promising Ottawa would work with Washington to “create growth and opportunities on both sides of the border”.\n\nAfter the ruling, stock markets rose in the United States and Europe, led by shares of affected companies, including Europe’s luxury brands from LVMH to Hermes and Italian luxury outerwear group Moncler , all of which rose after the ruling.",
  "title": "Trump vows 10pc global tariff after court rebuke"
}