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They are the tariffs that refuse to die. Anyone who thought the US president’s signature trade policy might be in tatters when the US Supreme Court ruled in February that last year’s so-called liberation day tariffs were illegal has had to think again. New duties of between 10 and 12.5 per cent on 60 trading partners announced last Thursday demonstrate that the president is not done with his policy, but is moving it into a new phase. The administration is aiming to rebuild its tariff wall on more durable legal foundations. Its latest measures rebuilt the baseline — and there are more to come.
After America’s top court in February rejected Donald Trump’s claim that tariffs were justified by a “national emergency” caused by the US trade deficit, temporary replacement measures expired last week. The White House had readied new levies against 60 countries including the EU, UK, Mexico and Japan, based now on a claim that their import regimes are not tough enough on forced labour. The measures are said to result from a four-month US investigation. Major US allies say the idea that their markets permit forced labour is spurious and unjustified.
The same legal basis, Section 301, was used a week earlier to impose 25 per cent levies on selected imports from Brazil. The White House alleged unfair trade practices in areas from electronic payments to environmental protection. Many in Brazil — the biggest loser from the latest tariffs — pointed instead to Trump’s squabble with Brazil’s president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. A different basis, Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, was used to threaten 50 per cent tariffs on many goods from Canada. The move seemed to be retribution against Canada’s retaliation to Trump’s original tariffs — and leverage in talks to renew the US-Mexico-Canada trade deal.
The next step is expected to be further country-specific duties against 16 of the largest US trading partners after a US probe into “structural excess capacity” — also under Section 301. After last week’s measures renewed the baseline, this next step could enable the administration to restore the highs and lows of Trump’s original levies.
What might constrain the US president this time? For foreign partners, bringing cases to the paralysed World Trade Organization is probably futile. For countries lacking leverage comparable, say, to China’s stranglehold on rare earths, retaliation also looks risky; the measures against Canada seem to signal that the Trump administration is ready to use Section 338 to hit back at any government that tries to retaliate.
The US courts could again prove pivotal. But the administration’s new main tariff weapon, Section 301, does provide statutory authority for retaliatory measures against unfair trade practices by foreign countries. However dubious any such claims might appear, some analysts suggest US courts will focus more on whether due process was followed than on the substance.
Bond markets may also be less of a restraint than when they took fright at Trump’s tariffs last year. Some in the market now seem more nervous about what happens to billions of dollars of expected government revenues if tariffs are not reimposed.
So whether the president faces more pushback may come down to business and voters. For US companies, the new tariffs constitute yet more disruption and uncertainty — though businesses have been reluctant to speak out against Trump. For consumers, tariffs are unhelpful amid wider discontent over affordability; one academic study found that last year’s broad tariffs cumulatively contributed about 0.7 percentage points to the Consumer Price Index by September 2025. Barely three months before the US midterms, with the Iran war again pushing up oil prices, new rounds of tariffs hardly seem a voter-friendly move.
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