Sunday, February 22 2026 - United States President Donald Trump has doubled down on his new global tariffs, raising them from 10 percent to 15 percent, days after the Supreme Court struck down his sweeping levies on imports.
The move on Saturday came as businesses and governments
around the world sought repayment for the estimated $133bn that Washington has
already collected.
In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump announced the
raise “effective immediately” and said the move was based on a review of
the “ridiculous, poorly written and extraordinarily anti-American decision”
issued by the Supreme Court on Friday.
By a six-to-three vote, the court had ruled that it was
unconstitutional for Trump to unilaterally set and change tariffs, because the
power to tax lies with the US Congress.
The court’s decision struck down tariffs that Trump had
imposed on nearly every country using an emergency powers law, known as the
International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).
Colombia battles ongoing flood threat: Communities work to
hold back rising rivers
Iran plans to offer US proposal after Geneva nuclear talks
amid US-Iran standoff
Trump railed against the majority justices as
“fools and lapdogs” in a news conference after the ruling, calling them an
“embarrassment to their families”. He quickly signed an executive order –
resting on a different statute, Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 – to impose
the blanket 10 percent tariff, starting on Tuesday.
The 15 percent hike announced on Saturday is the highest
rate allowed under that law.
However, those tariffs are limited to 150 days unless they
are extended by Congress. No president has previously invoked Section 122, and
its use could lead to further legal challenges.
It was not immediately clear whether an updated executive
order was forthcoming.
Get instant alerts and
updates based on your interests. Be the first to know when big stories happen.
The White House said the Section 122 tariffs include
exemptions for certain products, including critical minerals, metals and energy
products, according to the Reuters news agency.
Trump wrote on Saturday that his administration will
continue to work on issuing other permissible tariffs.
“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,” he said.
The president has already said his administration intends to
rely on two other statutes that permit import taxes on specific products or
countries based on investigations into national security or unfair trade
practices.
Tariffs have been central to Trump’s economic agenda, which
he has used as a tool to address a range of goals – from reviving domestic
manufacturing to pressuring other nations to crack down on drug trafficking,
and pushing warring countries toward peace.
He has also wielded tariffs, or the threat of them, as
leverage to extract trade concessions from foreign governments.
Federal data shows the US Treasury had collected more than
$133bn from the import taxes the president has imposed under the emergency
powers law as of December.
US Supreme Court overturns tariffs: Donald Trump announces
new 10% global levy
Since the Supreme Court’s ruling, more than a thousand
lawsuits have been filed by importers in the US to seek refunds, and more cases
are on the way.
While legally sound, the path forward for such claims is not
straightforward, especially for smaller firms, said John Diamond, director of
the Center for Tax and Budget Policy at Rice University.
“It’s pretty clear that they will win in court, but it’ll
take some time,” Diamond said. “Once we get the court orders in effect, I don’t
think those refunds will be all that messy for larger firms. Smaller firms are
going to have a much more difficult time getting through the process.”
But foreign governments are managing “the real mess”,
Diamond said.
“What do you do if you’re Taiwan, or Great Britain, and you
have this existing trade deal, but now it’s kind of been turned upside down?”
The US-Taiwan trade deal lowers the general tariff on
Taiwanese goods from 20 percent to 15 percent, the same level as Asian trade
partners South Korea and Japan, in exchange for Taipei agreeing to buy about
$85bn of US energy, aircraft and equipment.
The US-United Kingdom deal imposes a 10 percent tariff on
imports of most UK goods, and reduces higher tariffs on imports of UK cars,
steel and aluminium.
After the Supreme Court’s decision, Trump’s trade representative, Jamieson
Greer, told Fox News on Friday that those countries must honour their
agreements even if they call for higher rates than the Section
122 tariffs.
Exports to the US from countries such as Malaysia and
Cambodia would continue to be taxed at their negotiated rates of 19 percent,
even though the universal rate is lower, Greer said.
Indonesia’s chief negotiator for US tariffs, Airlangga
Hartarto, said the trade deal between the countries that set US tariffs at 19
percent, which was signed on Friday, remains in force despite the court
decision.
The ruling could spell good news for countries like Brazil,
which has not negotiated a deal with Washington to lower its 40 percent tariff
rate but could now see its tariff rate drop to 15 percent, at least
temporarily.
Governments around the world have reacted to the
Supreme Court decision – as well as Trump’s subsequent tariff announcement
– with a mix of cautious optimism, trepidation and frustration.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he would coordinate a
joint European stance before talks with Trump in early March, while Hong Kong’s
secretary for financial services and the Treasury, Christopher Hiu, described
the situation surrounding Trump’s new tariff moves as a “fiasco”.
Why did the US Supreme Court strike down Trump’s global
tariff policy?
With the November midterm elections in the US looming,
Trump’s approval rating on his handling of the economy has steadily declined
during his year in office.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll that closed on Monday showed 34 percent
of respondents saying they approved of Trump’s handling of the economy, while 57 percent said they did not
approve.
Democrats, who need to flip only three Republican-held seats
in the US House of Representatives in November to win a majority, have blamed
Trump’s tariffs for exacerbating the rising cost of living.
They were quick to condemn Trump’s new tariff threat on
Saturday.
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.
0 Comments