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WASHINGTON — On Saturday, President Donald Trump announced his intention to raise global tariffs to 15%, a notable increase from the 10% he proposed just a day before. This comes on the heels of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that invalidated many of the extensive import taxes he had implemented over the past year.
The president’s declaration on social media underscores his determination to elevate tariffs despite the court’s limitations on his authority. Tariffs have consistently been a favored strategy for Trump as he seeks to redefine global trade dynamics and exert international influence.
Friday’s court ruling invalidated the tariffs Trump had broadly applied to numerous countries under an emergency powers statute. Trump now plans to leverage a different, though more constrained, legal framework for his tariff strategy.
He has already signed an executive order that allows him to bypass Congress and impose a 10% tariff on imports worldwide, effective from Tuesday, coinciding with his State of the Union address. However, these tariffs are set to expire after 150 days unless Congress acts to extend them.
The White House has not yet responded to inquiries regarding when the president will issue a revised order to increase the tariffs to 15%.
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%, the president said 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 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 U.S. 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 $133 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 Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Trump nemesis, added that “he does not care about you.”
AP reporter Ali Swenson contributed to this story.
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