Supreme Court Rejects Trump's Global Import Taxes and President Hits Back

Yesterday, by a majority of 6:3, judges of the US Supreme Court voted to rule Trump’s global import taxes introduced in 2025 as unlawful.  The Supreme Court ruling that it can only be law if passed by Congress, the usual route to law making in the US.

This means the tariffs/import taxes currently levied were unlawful and should be refunded.  Trump criticised US Judges and called them ‘fools’ and immediately hit back with new tariffs of 10%.  The claim being that the President has powers under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) 1977, to "regulate" trade in response to an emergency.  The argument from Trump is that the US has an economy emergency and so the power to take action.

Clearly, the Supreme Court does not. So here we go again with new tariffs and new legal battles to follow.

The new 10% tariff has been levied under a never used and so-called Section 122 Law, that allows the president to increase trade tariffs by up to 15% for a maximum of 150 days.

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$130bn already collected in now ‘illegal’ tariffs, should now be refunded.  The President has also stalled this in suggesting that refunds can only be made following court action by each claimant.  This may be OK for larger companies and governors of individual states or for hard hit countries like Canada, China, the EU and Mexico being hardest hit but not so for smaller firms.

US stock markets initially climbed on Friday following the global import tax ban as illegal but may be volatile next week with the new 10% tariffs.