Trump’s New Global Tariffs Shot Down By Trade Court

AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson

A trade court shut down President Donald Trump’s 10 percent global tariffs on most U.S. imports Thursday afternoon.

In the 2-1 ruling, a panel of judges ultimately blocked the Trump administration from imposing the 10 percent tariffs on the basis that they were not justified under a 1974 trade law.

The judges ruled Trump had wrongly invoked the law when he implemented the tariffs on February 20.

The White House used Section 122 in the Trade Act of 1974 to try to revive the tariffs after the Supreme Court shut them down, which the administration claimed would allow the White House to apply tariffs of up to 15 percent for a maximum of 150 days to account for “balance-of-payments deficits.”

The Supreme Court had declared that the president’s 2025 global tariffs were not authorized under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Thursday’s decision is in favor of the small businesses that have accused Trump of circumventing that ruling.

Approximately $166 billion from that first round of tariffs is set to be refunded. A final ruling outside of Trump’s favor on the matter would likely require him to refund any tariffs accrued since February.

Trump railed against the Supreme Court’s decision in an April post to Truth Social:

They said I can charge tariffs, but I have to do it a different way. And because of what they did, we have to pay back $160 billion. All they had to do is add one sentence, just one sentence. And that’s — you don’t have to pay anything taken in thus far back. But because they didn’t add — and by the way, it was a close call too. There were justices that were powerful that I was right on the tariffs. But because we lost by just two votes, you know, just little vote, two votes, we have to pay back $165 billion. They could have, with a little one sentence — you don’t have to paid back tariffs that have already been received, you start from this point, and you do it a different way. So we’re doing it a different, we’re going to end up with the same.

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