U.S. President Donald Trump doubled down on U.S. tariffs after the Supreme Court struck down the use of his emergency tariffs and said the ruling has strengthened the legal standing on the tariffs instead.
Trump increased the global tariffs to 15%, from 10%, after the Supreme Court’s ruling against his tariffs on Saturday.
He said in a Truth Social post, “I, as President of the United States of America, will be, effective immediately, raising the 10% Worldwide Tariff on Countries, many of which have been ‘ripping’ the U.S. off for decades, without retribution (until I came along!), to the fully allowed, and legally tested, 15% level.”
What began as a legal setback after the Supreme Court’s ruling has now been reframed by Trump as both justification and momentum for expanding his trade strategy.
He argued that the Supreme Court’s ruling may expand, not weaken his tariff strategy, citing a dissent written by Justice Kavanaugh, listing the laws that could be pursued, while acknowledging that those processes may be more cumbersome, but will ultimately have stronger legal standing.
“Now I’ll go the way I could have gone originally, which is even stronger than our original choice,” Trump said.
“Foreign countries that have been ripping us off for years are ecstatic. They’re so happy. And they’re dancing in the streets, but they won’t be dancing for long, that I can assure you,” he added.
Trump said that he was ashamed of some members of the court for “not having the courage to stand up and do what’s right for our country.”
“They also are a, frankly, disgrace to our nation, those justices.”
“They’re an automatic no matter how good a case you have—it’s a no. You can’t knock their loyalty,” Trump added.
Trump praised Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh for dissenting, thanking them for what he called their strength, wisdom and love of country.
He also said he was “going to find out” when asked if he would investigate foreign influence over the Supreme Court.
“It’s my opinion that the court has been swayed by foreign interests and a political movement that is far smaller than people would ever think,” Trump said.
“I think that foreign interests are represented by people that I believe have undue influence, have a lot of influence over the Supreme Court, whether it’s through fear or respect or friendships,” he added.
Trump also said tariff is an important issue of economic and national security, and how he had used his tariffs over the past year to lessen trade deficit, settle wars and reduce illicit drugs coming into the U.S.
“China had hundreds of billions of dollars in surpluses with the United States. They rebuilt China. They rebuilt the army. We built China’s army by allowing that to happen,” he said.
Trump added, “I charged China a 20 percent tariff as a penalty for sending fentanyl in. And that was 20 times more than they could make by selling fentanyl.”
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent echoed Trump’s tariffs as a powerful leverage against Beijing.
“What was on October 8th when the Chinese government said that they were going to put a worldwide export control on any product that had 0.01 percent Chinese rare earths in it, 24 hours later, President Trump said that he would impose 100 per cent tariff on China if they did it. They immediately came to the negotiating table,” he said.
