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Based on the visibly simmering anger that U.S. President Donald Trump barely managed to suppress throughout his news conference on the Supreme Court’s tariff decision, it’s a fair bet that Friday was the worst day so far of his second term.
Three conservative justices — including two of Trump’s own nominees — tipped the balance on the court to hand the president a 6-3 defeat in what he had previously called the most important case in U.S. history.
The ruling means Trump does not have the power to impose tariffs through the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which he had attempted to use as the foundation of his tariff-fuelled trade war on the rest of the world.
With that foundation now shattered, Trump is trying to shrug it off and lay another one.
“Their decision is incorrect. But it doesn’t matter because we have very powerful alternatives,” he told the news conference.
Trump announced he’ll use other legally established ways of imposing tariffs, starting with a 10 per cent levy worldwide through a different piece of legislation, and claimed his Plan B could bring even more tariff revenue into the treasury than Plan A did.
WATCH | New set of tariffs coming, Trump says:
Trump says he will impose 10 per cent global tariff after U.S. Supreme Court loss
President Donald Trump, who took aim at a U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down tariffs he imposed under emergency powers, says he has alternatives available to him and will move forward with a 10 per cent global tariff. CBC’s Katie Simpson looks at the top court’s ruling, Trump’s reaction and what might come next.
“The numbers could be far greater than the hundreds of billions we’ve already taken in,” he said, without providing evidence.
That prompts the question: If these alternative ways of imposing tariffs are bigger and better than the one struck down by the Supreme Court, why didn’t Trump go with Plan B first?
The fine print of Trump’s new 10 per cent temporary import duty gives some hints of why it was the backup rather than Plan A. The tariff lasts for 150 days, at which point it falls to Congress to extend it.
Despite calling it a global tariff, Trump has given exemptions to a litany of items, including passenger vehicles, energy products, pharmaceuticals, fertilizers, beef, tomatoes, oranges and some electronics.
Also exempt: Canadian goods that comply with the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement, which covers the vast majority of Canadian exports south of the border.
‘Unpatriotic and disloyal’
Trump’s reaction to the ruling could be seen as the latest example of a pattern of being unwilling to admit that he has lost, the 2020 presidential election being the biggest.
Consider the combative, defiant and unrepentant language he used in Friday’s news conference, revealing just how badly he wanted to stick with Plan A.
He slammed the Supreme Court justices who ruled against him as “fools and lapdogs” and “unpatriotic and disloyal.” He claimed the court has been “swayed by foreign interests.”
He called the people who brought the tariff lawsuits “sleazebags” and “slimeballs.”
He expressed disbelief that the court could have interpreted the law any way but in his favour.
WATCH | What this signals about the Supreme Court:
Striking down of Trump’s tariffs ‘reasserts the court’s authority’: Former U.S. District Court judge
Shira Scheindlin, a former U.S. district court judge, tells CBC News that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to strike down President Donald Trump’s tariffs is a reassertion of
its authority to decide what’s constitutional and that the decision to impose tariffs is for Congress and not the president.
Kelly Ann Shaw, who was a senior trade adviser to Trump in his first term says there’s no way her former boss would be happy being forced to pivot this way.
“I’m sure the president was not in a good mood when he got the news of the Supreme Court’s decision,” Shaw told CBC News Network on Friday.
Can ‘cobble together’ other tariffs
Even before Trump announced his Plan B, Shaw was predicting it would come.
“What I expect to see is the administration attempt to largely recreate the tariff program as it exists now,” she said. “There are a lot of options that the president can cobble together.”
Eric Miller, founder of Rideau Potomac Strategy Group, specializing in Canada-U.S. trade policy, says the ruling will not alter the “high-tariff world” that Trump has created, nor will it shake his profound belief in the power of tariffs.
“He won’t see this as a tactical loss,” Miller told Radio-Canada in Washington.
“His overall strategy of putting high tariffs in hopes of driving back manufacturing and other production to the United States very much remains unchanged.”
WATCH | Trade uncertainty remains for Canada:
What does the U.S. Supreme Court striking down Trump’s tariffs mean for Canada?
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that President Donald Trump overstepped his authority when invoking emergency powers to order tariffs last year. But now Trump is calling for a 10 per cent global tariff in response to the ruling. Douglas College political science instructor Jovian Radheshwar told BC Today that uncertainty in Canada over tariffs and trade will remain.
Even if you accept Trump’s claim that the court ruling “doesn’t matter” because he has other ways to impose tariffs, it’s hard to see how the ruling cannot matter politically.
Trump’s approval ratings on the economy are already down in the dumps, with many swing-voting Americans upset that he hasn’t fulfilled his promises to rein in the cost of living. Tariffs haven’t helped.
That has fed growing Republican discontent with tariffs, leading to last week’s vote in the House of Representatives where six Republican members sided with Democrats to vote for the first time against Trump’s “fentanyl emergency” tariffs on Canadian products.
And now Trump has been handed a conservative legal rebuke over his attempt to stretch his presidential powers. The justices’ ruling leans on Article I of the U.S. Constitution, which says only Congress has the power to levy taxes (and therefore tariffs) unless it explicitly delegates that power to the president.
Despite all that, Trump is signalling he will charge ahead with his Plan B.
That puts the world’s trading nations — including Canada, for which the most painful tariffs remain in place — once again into the position of wondering what the economic impact of Trump’s next move will be.
