Trump Doubles Down After US Supreme Court Strikes Down Global Tariffs

*Imposes fresh 10% tariff, lashes out at justices

*Ruling opens door to potentially billions of dollar refunds

*Stocks rise

Sunday Ehigiator with agency report

United States President Donald Trump, yesterday, lashed out at the Supreme Court after justices dealt a sweeping rebuke of his trade policy.He also said he would sign an executive order imposing a new 10 percent “global tariff,” hours after the Supreme Court struck down his sweeping “reciprocal” import duties.

The new “Section 122” tariffs will come on top of the existing levies that remain intact following the high court’s decision, Trump said as he raged at the “deeply disappointing” ruling during a White House press briefing.Owing to the development, US stocks finished higher yesterday.In some of his harshest criticisms ever of the nation’s highest court, Trump said some justices should be “absolutely ashamed” for siding against him.

The Supreme Court struck down some of Trump’s most sweeping global tariffs, upending one of the White House’s top policy priorities and injecting new uncertainty into global trade.In a 6-3 decision, the justices in America’s highest court, according to the BBC, said the law Trump used to impose some of his most significant tariffs did not authorise him to do so.

The ruling opens the door to potentially billions of dollars in tariff refunds, delivering a major victory to the small businesses and states that had challenged the measures.The Trump administration had contended that the duties were justified under a law empowering the president to respond to national emergencies.

But lawyers for the challenging states and private firms said the law used by the president to impose the levies made no mention of the word “tariffs.”They argued that Congress did not intend to hand off its power to tax or give the president an “open-ended power to junk” other existing trade deals and tariff rules.

Without evidence, Business Insider Africa, noted that Trump accused justices of being “swayed by foreign interests.”He added that the majority opinion was “almost like not written by smart people.”“Others think they’re being politically correct, which has happened before far too often with members of this court,” he said. “They are just being fools and lapdogs for the RINOS and radical left Democrats.”Trump said it was fair to question the loyalty of “our people,” a likely reference to his two appointees, Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch, who sided against the administration’s view.

Trump said due to the “deeply disappointing” decision, “alternatives” would be used to preserve his trade agenda.Later, he said he would use a separate authority to impose a 10 percent global tariff on top of any existing tariffs.“The Supreme Court did not overrule tariffs. They merely overruled a particular use of IEPPA tariffs,” Trump said, citing the law in question in the court’s ruling.

Asked if the government would now have to issue refunds, Trump again criticised the court for not addressing the issue.“I guess it has to get litigated for the next two years,” he said.In his opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, “When Congress has delegated its tariff powers, it has done so in explicit terms and subject to strict limits.“Had Congress intended to convey the distinct and extraordinary power to impose tariffs, it would have done so expressly, as it consistently has in other tariff statutes.”

The decision of the Supreme applies to tariffs that Trump unveiled last year on goods from nearly every country in the world, in announcements that first targeted Mexico, Canada and China before expanding dramatically on “Liberation Day” in April.The duties were justified using a 1977 law, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which gives the president the power to “regulate” trade in response to an emergency.

Trump had said the levies were a response to drug trafficking and trade imbalances. The tariffs would encourage investment and manufacturing in the US, paving the way for economic revival, he said.But the measures sparked outcry at home and abroad from firms facing an abrupt rise in taxes on shipments entering the US, and fuelled worries that the levies would lead to higher prices.

The lawsuit had been seen as a major legal test of Trump’s wider push to expand the powers of the White House – and of the willingness of the justices, a majority of whom are conservative, to overturn a policy so central to the administration’s agenda.The decision to strike down the tariffs was joined by the court’s three liberal justices, as well as two justices nominated by Trump: Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch.

Justices Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh and Samuel Alito opposed the ruling.Ahead of the decision, the White House had said it would use other tools to impose tariffs, raising uncertainty about the path ahead.

“Things have only gotten more complicated and more messy today,” said Geoffrey Gertz, senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security in Washington, noting that the deal would raise questions about the fate of trade deals many countries struck with the Trump administration to lower tariffs last year.

Businesses across the US cautiously celebrated the decision yesterday, saying they hoped that refunds would come swiftly.US stocks finished higher yesterday after the Supreme Court ruling.The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 230.81 points, or 0.47 percent, to 49,625.97. The S&P 500 added 47.62 points, or 0.69 percent, to 6,909.51.

The Nasdaq Composite Index increased by 203.34 points, or 0.9 percent, to 22,886.07.Nine of the 11 primary S&P 500 sectors ended in green. Communication services and consumer discretionary led the gainers, rising 2.65 percent and 1.27 percent respectively. Meanwhile, the energy and health sectors lagged, dropping 0.71 percent and 0.32 percent respectively.

Meanwhile, the U.S. GDP increased at a 1.4 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter of 2025, well below the 2.5 percent growth market analysts had projected, according to data released yesterday, by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. The data release was delayed by a month due to the federal government shutdown, which economists estimate stripped between 0.25 and 1.5 percentage points from the quarterly growth.

“This comes as a relief for our employees here in Burlington, Vermont and at our manufacturing facility in Washington State,” chief executive of Terry Precision Cycling, one of the small businesses involved in the case, Nik Holm said.“Though it will be many months before our supply chain is back up and running as normal, we look forward to the government’s refund of these improperly-collected duties.”The US has already collected roughly $130 billion in tariffs using the IEEPA law, according to the most recent government data.Studies have found that the vast majority of those costs have been shouldered by American companies importing foreign goods and consumers buying them.

In recent weeks, hundreds of firms, including retailer Costco, aluminium giant Alcoa and food importers like tuna fish brand Bumble Bee, have filed lawsuits contesting the tariffs, in a bid to get in position for a refund.The decision by the majority does not directly mention refunds, likely handing back the question of how that process will work to the Court of International Trade.In his dissent, Justice Brett Kavanaugh warned the situation would be a “mess”.Steve Becker, head of the law firm Pillsbury’s international trade practice, said the “best thing” for businesses would be if the government created a procedure that did not require filing a lawsuit.