United States President Donald Trump has lashed out at the U.S Supreme Court’s decision to strike down his global import tariffs.
The U.S President has also immediately pivoted to unveil a new 15% across-the-board tariff.
The Supreme Court’s ruling, delivered Friday morning, argued that the President overstepped his constitutional bounds by using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose sweeping duties.
Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, emphasized that the power to “lay and collect taxes” belongs strictly to Congress. Trump, however, responded with characteristic fire, calling the decision a “disgrace” and accusing certain justices of being “swayed by foreign interests.”
Reacting, Trump described the Supreme Court’s decision on his global import tariffs as “terrible” and lambasted the justices who rejected his trade policy as “fools”.
Trump lashed out in unusually personal terms against the six Supreme Court justices who handed him one of the biggest setbacks of his second term in office by striking down the administration’s global tariffs.
The court’s Friday ruling was “deeply disappointing”. The justices who joined the majority opinion should be “absolutely ashamed” and lacked the courage to “do the right thing”, Trump said, turning his response into a sweeping attack against a coequal branch of government.
“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 at the start of a press conference at the White House, which was held a few hours after the decision was released.
Speaking from the White House, Trump indicated that refunds would not be forthcoming without a legal battle, stating that he expected the matter to be tied up in court for years.
He also said he would turn to other laws to press ahead with his tariffs, which he has argued encourage investment and manufacturing in the U.S.
“We have alternatives – great alternatives, and we’ll be a lot stronger for it,” he said.
On his social media platform Truth Social, Trump says he will be raising worldwide tariffs to 15% “effective immediately”.
The president said the decision has been made based on a thorough review of the US Supreme Court’s “extraordinarily anti-American decision” to strike down his sweeping tariffs.
He wrote: “During the next short number of months, the Trump Administration will determine and issue the new and legally permissible tariffs, which will continue our extraordinarily successful process of Making America Great Again – GREATER THAN EVER BEFORE!!!”
The court battle centered on import taxes that Trump introduced last year on goods from nearly every country in the world.
The tariffs initially targeted Mexico, Canada, and China, before expanding dramatically to dozens of trade partners on what the president billed as “Liberation Day” last April.
Pan-Atlantic Kompass reports that Trump set rates including a 35% duty on many goods from Canada, 25% for India, 20% for Taiwan, and 39% for Switzerland, according to the presidential executive order.
The order listed higher import duty rates of 10% to 41% starting in seven days for 69 trading partners.
For Nigeria, the tariff was 15%.
