Trump Concedes New Tariffs Mirror Struck-Down Duties
Get the Finance newsletter
Daily finance — markets, central banks, M&A, the prints that move money. Free.
- Donald Trump told Fox News on Tuesday that new tariffs are functionally the same as the ones the Supreme Court struck down as illegal, calling it "a shame" he must use a "more cumbersome" route.
- The Trump administration on Friday imposed 10%–12.5% tariffs on goods from more than 80 countries, citing those trade partners' failure to effectively prohibit forced labor.
- Those duties took effect the same day Trump's worldwide 10% temporary tariff hit its 150-day expiration; the temporary rate had been announced Feb. 20, the same day the Supreme Court struck down his "liberation day" duties.
- A federal lawsuit filed four days before the interview argues the newest tariffs are "designed to preserve substantially the same broad tariff regime" courts held Congress did not authorize.
- A senior administration official told reporters Thursday the forced-labor focus predates the expired tariff and the timing was chosen "to avoid complexity," not as a replacement.
- Trump told Fox he'd rather the U.S. leave USMCA than renegotiate, saying "Mexico and Canada need us. We don't need them" — weeks after the U.S. decided not to renew the deal.
Why it matters: Trump's own concession that the new tariffs do "the same thing" as the ones SCOTUS killed gives plaintiffs in the Friday lawsuit a quote to cite verbatim, strengthening the argument that the administration is merely rebranding an unauthorized regime. With cost-of-living concerns now a midterm flashpoint, Trump's claim that "tariffs have made this country a fortune" sits uneasily against the consumer-price backdrop his own tariffs produce.
