US President Trump promises new tariffs, slams Supreme Court decision

Supreme Court blocks Trump’s emergency tariffs, but he plans to invoke other laws to maintain and raise tariffs.

United States President Donald Trump slammed the US Supreme Court as a “disgrace” after a 6-3 ruling struck down his sweeping global tariffs, stating that he will maintain the levies through alternative means.

The president went on to announce on Friday that, despite the top court’s decision, he would impose a 10 percent global tariff for 150 days to replace some of his emergency tariffs that were struck down by the court.

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The duties would be over and above tariffs that are currently in place, specifically the sectoral tariffs on steel, aluminium, auto parts and a few others. The new 10 percent tariff would go into effect in about three days.

Trump called the court’s liberal justices a “disgrace to our nation” and denounced the conservatives who sided with them as “unpatriotic and disloyal” to the US Constitution.

The court ruled, in a 6-3 decision, that Trump cannot use emergency powers to impose sweeping tariffs on imports from countries worldwide without the consent of Congress.

But the US president has argued that he has found a loophole to maintain the levies and even raise them by 10 percent – relying on other existing laws that give him powers over trade.

“In order to protect our country, a president can actually charge more tariffs than I was charging in the past period of a year under the various tariffs authorities,” Trump said.

“So we can use other of the statutes, other of the tariff authorities, which have also been confirmed and are fully allowed.”