After the Supreme Court struck down on February 20 a series of tariffs he put in place over one year ago, U.S. President Donald Trump has announced a new global tariff in response.
The Supreme Court of the United States ruled that Trump lacked the jurisdiction to implement the tariffs he announced at the beginning of last year through the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Though the IEEPA does allow the president to “regulate…importation”, SCOTUS found the law does not authorize the president to impose tariffs, which the court characterized as “unbounded in scope, amount, and duration.”
Trump originally implemented a 25% duty on most Canadian and Mexican imports and a 10% duty on most Chinese imports related to an “influx of illegal drugs” from those countries, as well as a variety of fluctuating tariffs on numerous countries to address trade deficits.
In a TruthSocial post after the ruling, Trump referred to the opinion as ridiculous and said it had indirectly given him greater power to implement tariffs:
“Based on longstanding Law and Hundreds of Victories to the contrary, the Supreme Court did not overrule TARIFFS, they merely overruled a particular use of IEEPA TARIFFS,” said Trump in a post. “The ability to block, embargo, restrict, license, or impose any other condition on a Foreign Country’s ability to conduct Trade with the United States under IEEPA, has been fully confirmed by this decision. In order to protect our Country, a President can actually charge more TARIFFS than I was charging in the past under the various other TARIFF authorities, which have also been confirmed, and fully allowed.”
As a result, Trump announced he would sign an executive order imposing a global 10% tariff under Section 122, on top of tariffs already being charged, and would order several investigations “to protect our Country from unfair Trading practices.” Those Section 122 tariffs, by law, will have a 150-day expiration date.
Shortly after that announcement, Trump posted on TruthSocial that he would raise that 10% global tariff to 15%.
Notably, the 50% duty rate on “derivative” steel and aluminum products covered by Section 232 sectoral tariffs, which was enacted in August 2025 and directly affects both construction equipment and parts, remains in effect.
In a February 20 emailed notice, the American Road & Transportation Builders Association said regarding the SCOTUS decision, “The Court’s decision reinforces Congress’s primary role over tariffs and may potentially reduce uncertainty around the issuance of sweeping emergency tariffs that can affect materials costs and supply chains. The IEEPA tariffs at issue were country-specific, rather than sector-specific, making them particularly broad in scope. Estimates suggest they accounted for at least 70 percent of recent U.S. tariff revenues. Sectoral and commodity-specific tariffs issued under other authorities, such as for steel and aluminum, remain in place.”
