The Supreme Court’s Friday ruling striking down President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs will not free U.S. companies from their concerns about the direction of trade policy.
“There is huge uncertainty” facing businesses and U.S. trading partners following the landmark decision, said William Reinsch, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the former president of the National Foreign Trade Council. “There is a lot of dust that has yet to be settled — companies don’t know what they will be charged.”
Mr. Trump himself is kicking up some of that dust. Immediately after the ruling, he announced a temporary 10% global tax on U.S. imports, before hiking the levy to 15% on Saturday, while also blasting the high court’s decision on social media as “ridiculous” and “extraordinarily anti-American.”
Heavy blow for Trump tariffs
The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, does not authorize the president to impose broad-based tariffs, sharply curtailing the Trump administration’s use of emergency powers in trade policy. Later that day, Mr. Trump invoked Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 to impose new duties.
“Any Country that wants to ‘play games’ with the ridiculous supreme court decision, especially those that have ‘Ripped Off’ the U.S.A. for years, and even decades, will be met with a much higher Tariff, and worse, than that which they just recently agreed to. BUYER BEWARE!!!” Mr. Trump said Monday on Truth Social.
The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The court’s decision, as well as Mr. Trump’s response, raises fresh questions for U.S. businesses and foreign trading partners. Some of those partners had negotiated trade deals with tariffs higher than the new 15% rate, experts noted. And because the Section 122 tariffs are set to expire in 150 days unless extended by Congress, American companies are left to ponder the direction of tariffs and where rates might eventually settle.
“Pure tariff chaos”
The Trump administration will stand by its trade deals and expects its partners to do the same, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said Sunday on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”
Yet there are signs that some nations may be reconsidering those trade deals, especially those that reached agreements at rates higher than the current 15% level set by Mr. Trump on Saturday.
A top European Union lawmaker said Sunday he would propose pausing ratification of a new trade agreement between the EU and the U.S., citing fresh uncertainty. India, which earlier this month agreed to a 18% tariff rate in an interim deal with the U.S., has also postponed a trade visit to Washington that was aimed at finalizing the agreement, according to CNBC.
“Pure tariff chaos on the part of the U.S. administration,” Bernd Lange, chair of the European Parliament’s international trade committee, wrote on social media. “No one can make sense of it anymore — only open questions and growing uncertainty for the EU and other U.S. trading partners.”
Greer said he spoke with his European counterpart this weekend and has not been told the deal is off.
“The deals were not premised on whether or not the emergency tariff litigation would rise or fall,” Greer said on Face the Nation. “I haven’t heard anyone yet come to me and say the deal’s off. They want to see how this plays out.”
What happens now?
Mr. Trump has turned to Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 to replace the tariffs struck down by the Supreme Court. That legal provision allows the president to impose duties of up to 15% for 150 days to deal with “large and serious” balance-of-payment issues.
After 150 days, the tariffs would need to be extended by lawmakers. That proposal could face an uphill climb in Congress, Cato Institute trade expert Colin Grabow told CBS News, noting that some Republican lawmakers, such as Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, have spoken out against tariffs.
“The baseline for a lot of people is that these 15% tariffs are going to be in place in the next 150 days — but beyond that, what does that look like? Also, uncertainty,” Grabow said.
Because Mr. Trump remains committed to tariffs as both an economic and foreign policy tool, his administration is expected to continue pursuing avenues to stiffen import duties, both Grabow and Reinsch told CBS News.
When the Section 122 tariffs expire, Mr. Trump could turn to other trade laws, such as Section 301 of the Trade Act. That provision would allow Mr. Trump to apply country-based tariffs if the U.S. Trade Representative determines that another nation is engaging in unfair trade practices.
But that, too, would raise questions about timing and where the tariffs could be set under new provisions, Grabow said.
“No one should be under the impression, because of the IEEPA ruling, that the tariff question has been solved,” he said. “The only questions are, ‘What are the exact levels, what are the tools and when will they come into force?'”
Modest economic impact
The current effective U.S. tariff rate — excluding the IEEPA duties but including the new Section 122 tariffs — is now 13.7%, according to the Yale Budget Lab. That is below the 16% rate in effect before the Supreme Court’s ruling on Friday, the nonpartisan think tank said.
Because the change is relatively small, the new tariffs are likely to have only a modest impact on the economy, Goldman Sachs said in a research note, adding that they aren’t adjusting their forecasts for inflation or growth to account for the levies.
Yet the Trump administration’s determination to continue its tariff policies raises broader questions about whether they are achieving their intended goals, experts said. The president has argued that tariffs will revive U.S. manufacturing and generate billions in new revenue for federal coffers.
In 2025, the manufacturing sector lost 108,000 jobs, according to government data.
“What’s not happening is the return of manufacturing to the United States,” noted CSIS’s Reinsch. Tariffs “are not producing the desired outcome, let’s put it that way.”
“Unprecedented” terrain
Manufacturers that import components used to fabricate products at U.S. plants have faced higher costs due to the Trump administration’s tariffs, Reinsch added.
To be sure, U.S. manufacturing is grappling with long-term issues beyond tariffs, ranging from an industrywide shift to automation and fierce global competition, including U.S. trading partners who have stepped up subsidies to key industries to offset the higher tariff costs.
The Treasury Department collected $287 billion in tariffs in 2025, with roughly $130 billion stemming from the IEEPA tariffs. The Supreme Court ruling may prompt some businesses to seek refunds from the federal government, putting that revenue in question.
The only thing that seems certain is that the Trump administration is unlikely to back down from pursuing additional tariffs, experts said.
“We’re literally in unprecedented territory,” Grabow said. “The only thing we know for sure is that we have an administration that is undeterred from its use of tariffs.”
