US President Donald Trump said on Saturday he is raising the worldwide tariffs on goods entering the United States from 10 per cent to 15pc “effective immediately,” a day after the Supreme Court largely struck down his sweeping duties.
Trump had immediately announced a 10pc across-the-board tariff on Friday after the court’s decision, which found the president had exceeded his authority when he imposed an array of higher rates under an economic emergency law.
The new levies are grounded in a separate law, known as Section 122, that allows tariffs up to 15pc but requires congressional approval to extend them after 150 days.
Trump said on his Truth Social platform that after a thorough review of Friday’s “extraordinarily anti-American decision” by the court to rein in his tariff programme, the administration was hiking the import levies “to the fully allowed, and legally tested, 15pc level”.
“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 – GREATER THAN EVER BEFORE,” he said in his post.
On Friday, the conservative-majority US Supreme Court ruled the emergency powers law – International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) – “does not authorise the President to impose tariffs”, marking Trump’s biggest defeat at the SC since returning to the White House last year.
While hard-hit Canada welcomed the ruling, pointing out the levies were always “unjustified”, other US trading partners, particularly European powers, were cautious in their response, with the United Kingdom, Germany and the European Union stating that they were in contact with the Trump administration and analysing the court decision “carefully”.