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In a recent social media statement, former President Trump declared his intention to continue escalating tariffs, undeterred by a recent court ruling that curbed his previous tariff impositions. This announcement underscores his persistent strategy of utilizing tariffs to reshape international trade dynamics and exert global influence.
Trump has long favored tariffs as a strategic instrument, leveraging them to renegotiate trade agreements and apply pressure on the international stage. Despite the judicial setback, which invalidated tariffs imposed broadly using emergency powers, Trump remains undeterred.
The court’s decision on Friday effectively nullified the sweeping tariffs that had been applied to almost every nation under an emergency powers statute. However, Trump has indicated his intent to pivot towards a different, albeit more restrictive, legal avenue to achieve similar goals.
In response, he has signed an executive order granting him the authority to impose a 10% tax on global imports. This measure allows him to circumvent Congress and is set to take effect on Tuesday, coinciding with his upcoming State of the Union address.
He’s already signed an executive order enabling him to bypass Congress and impose a 10 per cent tax on imports from around the world, starting on Tuesday, the same day as his State of the Union speech.
However, those tariffs are limited to 150 days unless they are extended legislatively.
He wrote on social media that he was making the announcement “based on a thorough, detailed, and complete review of the ridiculous, poorly written, and extraordinarily anti-American decision on Tariffs issued yesterday.”
By a 6-3 vote, the justices ruled that it was unconstitutional for Trump to unilaterally set and change tariffs because the power to tax lies with Congress.
In addition to the temporary tariffs that Trump wants to set at 15 per cent, the president said on Friday that he was also pursuing tariffs through other sections of federal law which require an investigation by the Commerce Department.
He wrote on Saturday that “during the next short number of months, the Trump Administration will determine and issue the new and legally permissible Tariffs, which will continue our extraordinarily successful process of Making America Great Again.”
After the Supreme Court decision, Trump made an unusually personal attack on the justices who ruled against him in a 6-3 vote, including two of those he appointed during his first term, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett.
Trump, at a news conference on Friday, said that the situation is “an embarrassment to their families.”
He was still seething on Friday night, posting on social media complaining about Gorsuch, Coney Barrett and Chief Justice John Roberts, who ruled with the majority and wrote the majority opinion.
On Saturday morning, Trump issued another post declaring that his “new hero” was Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who wrote a 63-page dissent.
He also praised Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, who were in the minority, and said of the three dissenting justices: “There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that they want to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
Tariffs have been central to Trump’s economic policies, which he has said address a host of ills, from reviving trade imbalances and reviving US manufacturing to forcing other nations to action, whether it be stepping up efforts to combat drug trafficking or ceasing hostilities with each other.
He also regularly claimed despite evidence to the contrary that foreign governments would pay the tariffs, not American consumers and businesses.
Federal data shows the Treasury had collected more than $US133 billion ($187 billion) from the import taxes the president has imposed under the emergency powers law as of December, and Trump has made many promises about what that money might go toward, such as paying down the national debt and sending dividend checks to taxpayers.
The Supreme Court decision did not address what happens to the funds that have already been collected from tariffs.
Democrats spoke out quickly on Trump’s new tariff threat.
Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee accused Trump of “pickpocketing the American people” with his newly announced higher tariff.
“A little over 24 hours after his tariffs were ruled illegal, he’s doing anything he can to make sure he can still jack up your costs,” they wrote on social media.
California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, a Trump nemesis, added that “he does not care about you.”
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