United States President Donald Trump said that he wasraisingthe global tariff he wants to impose to 15 per cent, up from 10 per cent he had announced a day earlier. The revised tariffs came after the Supreme Court struck down Trump's far-reaching global tariffs on Friday, handing him a stinging loss on an issue crucial to his economic agenda. The court ruled 6-3 that he had exceeded his authority in imposing broad tariffs under emergency powers. For India, the development adds freshuncertaintyto an already shifting tariff regime.
Following the Supreme Court's verdict, Trump signed a proclamation titled 'Imposing a Temporary Import Surcharge to Address Fundamental International Payments Problems', and said that he was imposing a "temporary import surcharge of 10 per cent ad valorem" on articles imported into the US, effective February 24.
The catch was that those tariffs would be limited to just 150 days, unless they are extended legislatively.
Later in the day, Trump said that he was raising the global tariff to 15 per cent. Trump said in a social media post on that he was making the decision "Based on a thorough, detailed, and complete review of the ridiculous, poorly written, and extraordinarily anti-American decision on Tariffs issued yesterday," by the US Supreme Court. He said that the tariffs were "legally tested."
"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!!!," he added.
The Indian-origin lawyer, Neal Katyal, who successfully argued against the Trump administration's sweeping tariffs before the US Supreme Court claimed that the fresh moves to effectively defy the court's recent ruling lack legal teeth. "Seems hard for the President to rely on the 15 percent statute (sec 122) when his DOJ in our case told the Court the opposite," he said in a post.
"Nor does [122] have any obvious application here, where the concerns the President identified in declaring an emergency arise from trade deficits, which are conceptually distinct from balance-of-payments deficits (sic)."
He further dared Trump to get his sweeping tariff regime passed through Congress. "If his tariffs are such a good idea, he should have no problem persuading Congress. That’s what our Constitution requires," Katyal said in his post.
Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 allows a president to impose tariffs of up to 15 per cent for a maximum of 150 days to address what the law calls large and serious United States balance-of-payments deficits, in simple terms, when imports far exceed exports.
With the earlier announced tariff rate of 10 per cent to be applicable on countries around the world, Indian goods being imported into the US would no longer have been subjected to the 18 per cent tariff rate that had been decided following the announcement of a framework for an Interim Agreement on trade between India and the US. But that would change now with the new announcement of the 15 per cent tariff rates.
Source: India Latest News, Breaking News Today, Top News Headlines | Times Now
