President Donald Trump said his newest tariffs do the same work as the global duties the Supreme Court ruled illegal earlier this year, and that the ruling only pushed him onto a more cumbersome route. His remarks came four days after a federal lawsuit accused his administration of using different statutes as pretext to revive that regime.
President Donald Trump said Tuesday that new U.S. tariffs are functionally the same as the ones the Supreme Court struck down as illegal earlier this year. He told Fox News that the ruling, which he described as a very close decision, left him with other ways of doing the same thing by a more cumbersome route.
A lawsuit already makes the same argument
Trump's trade remarks came four days after a federal lawsuit accused his administration of using different statutes as pretext to resurrect the global tariff regime that failed in the courts. The suit, filed Friday, argues that the newest duties, though ostensibly aimed at forced labor practices, keep in place substantially the tariff regime the courts have held Congress did not authorize.
The administration imposed tariffs between 10% and 12.5% on goods from more than 80 countries on Friday, on the grounds that those trade partners failed to effectively prohibit the use of forced labor. Those duties came into effect just as Trump's worldwide 10% tariff hit its 150-day time limit and expired.
Trump announced that temporary tariff on Feb. 20, the same day the Supreme Court struck down his prior "liberation day" duties, which set a 10% near-global reciprocal baseline and gave dozens of countries higher individualized rates. All three tariff policies were brought using different statutory authorities.
A senior administration official, asked Thursday whether the focus on forced labor is an excuse to reimpose "liberation day," claimed Trump has prioritized the issue for many years. The official added that the timing of the new duties, coming into force directly as the temporary ones lapsed, was chosen to avoid complexity and not as a replacement.
Trump prefers leaving USMCA to renegotiating it
He also told Fox that he would rather the U.S. leave its trilateral trade deal with Canada and Mexico than renegotiate it, the same month Washington decided not to renew the pact known as USMCA. Asked whether he was still looking to update it, he said he would rather be independent.
Trump played down what the agreement does for the United States: "Mexico and Canada need us. We don't need them."
Cost of living moves into the tariff fight
In the same interview, Trump dismissed fears that his tariffs, which are taxes on imported goods, could hurt the economy, as Americans' cost-of-living concerns become a central issue of the upcoming midterm elections. He said the tariffs have made the country a fortune, while claiming that his use of them has helped stop numerous wars.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment on Trump's remarks.
Source: CNBC
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