President Donald Trump on Friday evening said he signed an executive order imposing a new 10% “global tariff,” hours after the Supreme Court struck down his sweeping “reciprocal” import duties in a major rebuke of his trade agenda.
The “Section 122” tariffs will take effect “almost immediately,” Trump said in a Truth Social post.
They come on top of the levies that remain intact following the high court’s decision, which invalidated the tariffs Trump had imposed using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA.
At a White House press briefing Friday afternoon, Trump railed against the “deeply disappointing” 6-3 ruling.
“I’m ashamed of certain members of the court, absolutely ashamed for not having the courage to do what’s right for our country,” Trump said.
The ruling threw out the legal underpinning for many of the tariffs that Trump insists are essential for the U.S. economy and for rebuilding America’s shrinking manufacturing base.
Trump’s reciprocal tariffs and his drug-trafficking-related duties both hinged on his administration’s expansive interpretation of IEEPA. But the court’s majority ruled Friday that IEEPA “does not authorize the President to impose tariffs.”
The new 10% global tariffs, which come with a 150-day time limit, will effectively replace the IEEPA duties, a White House official told CNBC later Friday.
That could mean lower U.S. tariff rates for some of the countries that had either struck trade deals with the Trump administration, or were in ongoing trade talks.
That’s because many of those countries and regions had faced U.S. tariffs higher than 10% as part of those agreements. The European Union, for example, agreed to a 15% tariff as part of its trade deal with the U.S.
Those tariffs were largely implemented under IEEPA, meaning they were invalidated as a result of the Supreme Court’s ruling.
The shake-up could be significant for China, which faced two sets of 10% IEEPA-based U.S. tariffs in addition to a 25% duty that remains in effect. Those IEEPA tariffs will be replaced by Trump’s new global tariff, bringing China’s total rate of 35%, the White House official told CNBC.
Trump was adamant that he will find other ways to impose tariffs without Congress. And the White House official noted that as the administration works through additional legal tariff pathways, the rates imposed on individual countries may snap back to their higher levels.
When asked at Friday’s press briefing why he did not want to work with the legislative branch, Trump said, “I don’t have to. I have the right to do tariffs.”
Trump’s remarks vacillated between defiant and scathing. He even went after Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, whom he nominated, after they voted with the majority.
“I think their decision was terrible,” Trump said. “I think it’s an embarrassment to their families, you want to know the truth. The two of them.”
The new tariff order invokes Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. Tariffs created using that statute can last for only 150 days, with any extension requiring congressional approval.
Asked at the press briefing about that time limit and about getting congressional buy-in, Trump said, “We have the right to do pretty much what we want to do.”
Trump also declared that all the tariffs active under statutes known as Section 232 and Section 301 will remain “in full force and effect.”
The Trump administration is also wielding Section 301 to launch several investigations into possible unfair trade practices, which could result in additional new tariffs, Trump said.
Most of the U.S. tariff revenue generated last year came from the IEEPA duties.
“Other alternatives will now be used to replace the ones that the court incorrectly rejected,” Trump said Friday.
“We’ll take in more money, and we’ll be a lot stronger for it,” he said.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, speaking at the Economic Club of Dallas shortly after Trump, said that the administration will replace the rejected IEEPA tariffs by leveraging a number of other existing tariff laws.
Doing so “will result in virtually unchanged tariff revenue in 2026,” Bessent said. “No one should expect that the tariff revenue will go down.”
— CNBC’s Eamon Javers contributed to this report.
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