Trump pursues new import taxes to replace tariffs struck down by Supreme Court

When the Supreme Court struck down his favorite tariffs in February, President Donald Trump immediately imposed temporary import duties in their place. However, these temporary taxes expire in less than three months.

Now the administration is trying to impose more durable tariffs to keep revenue flowing to the U.S. Treasury and shore up the president’s protectionist wall around the American economy.

Starting this week, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative will begin hearings in two investigations that are expected to lead to a new round of U.S. tariffs: duties paid by U.S. importers that are often passed on through higher prices to consumers already fed up with the high cost of living.

Trump’s newest tariff move is sure to face more challenges in court, but it’s likely to be more robust than the one the Supreme Court threw out.

First, there’s a hearing Tuesday and Wednesday on whether 60 economies from Nigeria to Norway that account for 99% of U.S. imports are doing enough to ban trade in products produced with forced labor.

“For too long, American workers and firms have been forced to compete with foreign manufacturers who may gain an artificial cost advantage from the scourge of forced labor,” U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said in March. he said. The administration could punish those who disdain the law with new tariffs.

Then next week, the administration will investigate whether 16 U.S. trading partners, including China, the European Union and Japan, are overproducing goods, driving down prices and putting U.S. producers at a disadvantage. The economies surveyed account for 70% of U.S. imports, according to Erica York of the Tax Foundation. The investigation may again result in new tariffs.

Most major economies, including China, the EU and Japan, appear on both lists.

Trump’s top trade official insists he won’t bias investigations

The administration filed the lawsuits under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which allows tariffs and other sanctions against countries found to engage in “unfair,” “unreasonable” or “discriminatory” trade practices.

US Trade Representative Greer, who is overseeing the investigations, emphasized that she would not approach the investigations with prejudice.

However, importers and foreign countries have doubts that the process will be fair. After all, Trump’s Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent did not wait until the investigations were completed to announce that the U.S. government would replace the original tariff revenues with new import taxes, including those to be imposed under Section 301. The president himself said the new tariffs would “make us more money.” “If you believe the Treasury secretary and the president, then the cake is already baked,” said Scott Lincicome of the libertarian Cato Institute. “These investigations will result in tariffs similar to those that the Supreme Court overturned in February,” the Center for Trade Policy Studies said. On February 20, the high court ruled that Trump had overstepped his authority under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) by imposing double-digit tariffs on nearly every country in the world. Trump used this law to eagerly waive import tariffs. For example, he invented a new tariff on Canada (he never actually implemented it) because he didn’t like a Canadian television commercial criticizing his trade policies.

He used the threat of IEEPA tariffs to force major U.S. trading partners, including the EU, Japan and South Korea, to accept unbalanced trade deals. The taxes also brought in large amounts of revenue ($166 billion) before the Supreme Court shut them down by ruling that IEEPA could not be used to impose tariffs. The federal government is now required to refund money to importers who paid these tariffs.

Tariffs remain Trump’s choice

Trump has found a handy way to quickly offset, at least temporarily, some of the lost revenue that is expected to reach $1.6 trillion over the next decade. Also, Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 allows the president to impose global tariffs as high as 15% for up to 150 days.

The management wasted no time. Two days after the Supreme Court ruling, it imposed a 10% Section 122 tariff on imports. Trump said he would raise taxes to a maximum of 15 percent, but did not.

These tariffs expire on July 24. Congress can extend tariffs. But as November’s midterm elections approach, lawmakers have little incentive to approve a big tax: American voters are already angry about high prices, and taxes are at least partly responsible for that.

Section 301 provides another opportunity to replicate the protectionist effect of IEEPA tariffs. There is no limit on the size of Section 301 tariffs. They expire after four years but can be extended.

Perhaps best of all, from the Trump administration’s perspective after the Supreme Court defeat, Section 301 tariffs withstood legal challenges when the president used them during his first term to hammer China in a dispute over Beijing’s harsh policies to promote its own tech companies.

Any new 301 tariffs will certainly be challenged in court again. But judges can’t throw them out.

“Even if this is a veiled or less than veiled attempt to reinstate the IEEPA tariffs, he is still holding the mask of the process,” said trade lawyer Joyce Adetutu, a partner at the law firm Vinson & Elkins.

Importer calls investigation ‘fake’

Critics have focused on the pace of progress of Trump’s latest investigations. The imposition of Section 301 tariffs against China during the president’s first term resulted in almost a year of investigation and public comment. If the latest research reveals new tariffs in time to replace the expiring Section 122 taxes, the process would take less than half that time.

“This is such a short period of time. This is so intense that it doesn’t make sense that they could do this so quickly,” said Kenya Davis, a partner at the law firm Boies Schiller Flexner who does philanthropic work on human trafficking and forced labor. Importers bracing for the return of painful tariffs can take some comfort in knowing that Trump’s Section 301 tariffs likely won’t be as volatile as his IEEPA. taxes. He needs to follow the procedures before implementing them.

“One of the reasons Trump used IEEPA was that it was a completely blank slate,” or appeared to predate the Supreme Court decision, Cato’s Lincicome said, describing it as “a small schedule change in the Oval Office that Trump can turn on and off at will; he wakes up in the morning and doesn’t like Canadian television commercials, flips the switch… You can’t really do that with 301.”

Released on April 28, 2026