The Trump administration moved swiftly to impose new tariffs on more than 80 trading partners Friday, implementing duties ranging from 10% to 12.5% just as a previous temporary levy was set to expire. The action marks another attempt to bypass congressional authority on trade policy, even after a February Supreme Court ruling determined that the president had exceeded his legal powers in pursuing similar measures.
Among the countries facing the new tariffs are America's biggest trading partners: Canada, Mexico, and China. The United Kingdom, Australia, India, Japan, Brazil, and the 27-nation European Union also made the list. The stated justification centers on what the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative characterized as investigations into each nation's labor practices and whether they effectively block imports produced with forced labor.
Those countries deemed to have âmade commitments to adopt, and effectively enforce, forced labor import prohibitionsâ face a 10% rate. This group includes Canada, the European Union, India, Mexico, and the United Kingdom. Nations found to have âfailed to adopt a forced labor import prohibitionâ are subject to the higher 12.5% tariff. Australia, Brazil, China, and Japan fall into this category.
The timing is significant. Trump invoked Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 in March to impose a 10% global tariff for 150 days. That measure was set to expire at 12:01 a.m. Friday. The new tariffs effectively replace it, operating instead under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, a provision rarely used before Trump's first term that permits the president to impose tariffs after the trade representative completes prescribed investigations.
Trump has long insisted that the United States pays an unfair share in tariffs globally and that higher duties are essential to revitalize American manufacturing and employment. The administration maintains that tariff policy benefits Americans, though skeptics in the business community and Congress have raised concerns about the economic fallout.
The Legal Question
The February Supreme Court decision cast a shadow over tariff authority. The court ruled 6-3 that the 1977 law Trump had previously invoked lacked sufficient legal grounding. That statute granted the president authority to regulate international trade during a declared national emergency, but the justices said such powers during peacetime belong exclusively to Congress. âThe Framers did not vest any part of the taxing power in the executive branch,â the majority wrote.
Legal experts anticipate the new tariffs will face court challenges. Alan Wolff, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and former deputy director-general of the World Trade Organization, warned Thursday that the fresh tariffs represent âanother case of presidential overreachâ and predicted the Supreme Court would likely overturn them if challenged.
The New York Federal Reserve estimated that 90% of the economic burden from tariffs gets passed directly to U.S. consumers and businesses, contradicting administration claims. A Harris Poll survey found that 72% of Americans believe tariffs hurt consumers, a view shared by 64% of Republican voters. For some small business owners, tariff concerns have been overshadowed by more immediate economic pressures and worries about artificial intelligence adoption, though the government has paid companies tens of billions in tariff revenue since the February court ruling.
Author James Rodriguez: "The administration is playing legal whack-a-mole, trying different statutory hooks after the Supreme Court knocked down the first one, but the fundamental constitutional problem hasn't changed."
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