Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: US President Donald Trump has imposed a new 15 per cent global tariff to replace ones struck down by the Supreme Court, calling the ruling “terrible” and lambasting the justices who rejected his trade policy as “fools”.
The President unveiled the plan shortly after the justices outlawed most of the global tariffs the White House announced last year.
In a 6-3 decision, the court on February 20 held that the President had overstepped his powers. Authored by conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, the ruling punctured Trump’s long-held assertion that he could impose sweeping tariffs in the name of US economic security Victory for businesses The decision was a major victory for businesses and US states that had challenged the duties, opening the door to potentially billions of dollars in tariff refunds, while also injecting new uncertainty into the global trade landscape.
Speaking from the White House on February 20, Trump indicated that refunds would not come without a legal battle, saying he expected the matter to be tied up in court for years. He also said he would turn to other laws to press ahead with his tariffs, which he has argued encourage investment and manufacturing in the US. “We have alternatives – great alternatives and we’ll be a lot stronger for it,” he said.
The court battle was focused on import taxes that Trump unveiled last year on goods from nearly every country in the world. The tariffs initially targeted Mexico, Canada and China, before expanding dramatically to dozens of trade partners on what the president billed as “Liberation Day” last April. The White House had cited a 1977 law, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which gives the president power to “regulate” trade in response to an emergency.
But the measures sparked outcry at home and abroad from firms facing an abrupt rise in taxes on shipments entering the US, and fuelled wo
