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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Saturday that he wants a global tariff of 15 per cent, up from 10 per cent he had announced a day earlier after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down many of the far-reaching taxes on imports that he had imposed over the last year.
Trump’s announcement on social media was the latest sign that despite the court’s check on his powers, the Republican president still intends to ratchet up tariffs in an unpredictable way. Tariffs have been his favorite tool for rewriting the rules of global commerce and applying international pressure.
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The court’s decision on Friday struck down tariffs that Trump had imposed on nearly every country using an emergency powers law. Trump now said he will use a different, albeit more limited, legal authority.
He’s already signed an executive order enabling him to bypass Congress and impose a 10 per cent tax on imports from around the world, starting on Tuesday, the same day as his State of the Union speech. However, those tariffs are limited to 150 days unless they are extended legislatively.
The White House did not immediately respond to a message inquiring when the president would sign an updated order to peg the tariffs at 15 per cent.
He wrote on social media that he was making the announcement “based on a thorough, detailed, and complete review of the ridiculous, poorly written, and extraordinarily anti-American decision on Tariffs issued yesterday.”
By a 6-3 vote, the justices ruled that it was unconstitutional for Trump to unilaterally set and change tariffs because the power to tax lies with Congress.
In addition to the temporary tariffs that Trump wants to set at 15 per cent, the president said Friday that he was also pursuing tariffs through other sections of federal law which require an investigation by the Commerce Department.
He wrote on Saturday that “during the next short number of months, the Trump Administration will determine and issue the new and legally permissible Tariffs, which will continue our extraordinarily successful process of Making America Great Again.”
After the Supreme Court decision, Trump made an unusually personal attack on the justices who ruled against him in a 6-3 vote, including two of those he appointed during his first term, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett.
Trump, at a news conference on Friday, said that the situation is “an embarrassment to their families.”
He was still seething Friday night, posting on social media complaining about Gorsuch, Coney Barrett and Chief Justice John Roberts, who ruled with the majority and wrote the majority opinion.
On Saturday morning, Trump issued another post declaring that his “new hero” was Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who wrote a 63-page dissent. He also praised Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, who were in the minority, and said of the three dissenting justices: “There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that they want to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
Tariffs have been central to Trump’s economic policies, which he has said address a host of ills, from reviving trade imbalances and reviving U.S. manufacturing to forcing other nations to action, whether it be stepping up efforts to combat drug trafficking or ceasing hostilities with each other.
He also regularly claimed despite evidence to the contrary that foreign governments would pay the tariffs —not American consumers and businesses.
Federal data shows the Treasury had collected more than $133 billion from the import taxes the president has imposed under the emergency powers law as of December, and Trump has made many promises about what that money might go toward, such as paying down the national debt and sending dividend checks to taxpayers.
The Supreme Court decision did not address what happens to the funds that have already been collected from tariffs.
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