US President Donald Trump on Saturday imposed a 10% “global tariff” on all US trading partners, hours after a Supreme Court ruling that struck down the Trump administration’s reciprocal tariffs imposed in April. White House officials subsequently clarified that for countries like India that have signed trade agreements with the US, tariff levels will temporarily fall to 10% before new tariffs can be levied.
“It is my Great Honor to have just signed, from the Oval Office, a Global 10% Tariff on all Countries, which will be effective almost immediately. Thank you for your attention to this matter!,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
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“The new 10% tariff will go into effect at 12:01am Eastern Standard Time on February 24, the White House stated in a fact sheet. However, this tariff remains a temporary measure and has been authorised for a period of 150 days. Key imports like critical minerals, pharmaceuticals, certain electronics goods, key aerospace products and some agricultural products will remain exempt from the tariff”, the post said.
The new tariff will be authorised under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, which gives the President powers to impose tariffs in order to address balance of payments problems.
Also read: ‘I can destroy trade, but can’t charge $1’: Trump scoffs US Supreme Court’s tariffs order
In a press conference earlier on Friday, Trump told reporters that the terms of the trade deal with India would not be altered by the Supreme Court’s decision.
“Nothing changes. They will be paying tariffs and we will not be paying tariffs. The deal with India is they pay the tariffs. This is a reversal from what it used to be,” Trump said.
“PM Modi is a great gentleman. He’s a great man actually. But he was much smarter than the people he was against in terms of the United States. He was ripping us off. And we made a deal with India and it’s a fair deal,” he added.
Trump also repeated his claim that India had “pulled out of Russia” by cutting purchases of Russian energy at his request and that he brokered peace between India and Pakistan in May by threatening 200% tariffs on both countries.
The Trump administration is expected to put into place new tariffs after the Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 decision that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) did not authorise the President to impose sweeping tariffs globally.
However, experts expect the administration to follow up with more targeted tariffs.
“The administration took a risk by using the IEEPA authority initially to have this global transformational trade agenda on Liberation Day last year. I think now they will take the risk off and go to a tool that they use all the time which are Section 301 tariffs. So I think India is going to be held accountable because the government’s going to rip and replace the program with Section 301 tariffs keeping the exact same terms that exist today and frankly, I don’t think this is going to catch the Indian government by surprise”, Samir Kapadia, managing principal at the Vogel Group said.
For months, countries have been debating how sticky these tariffs are going to be within the legal construct in the United States. This is nothing new. Now, the fact that the court decision has been made is new, but I think every country knew that if it wasn’t going to be IEEPA, it was going to be something else,” Kapadia added.
