US PresidentDonald Trump’s fresh move to raise global tariffs to15 per centmay face immediate legal hurdles and may not even last the full 150-day window allowed under US law, senior lawyer and former Acting Solicitor GeneralNeal Katyaltold Times Now in an exclusive interaction with Times Network Group Editor-in-Chief Navika Kumar. Katyal, who argued against the Trump administration’s earlier tariff regime in the US Supreme Court, said the new measures are likely to be challenged “very quickly”.
Neal Katyal, an Indian-origin lawyer who argued before America’s highest court about the illegality of the levies, has been at the centre of the landmark US Supreme Court verdict striking down President Trump’s sweeping global tariffs on Friday. He argued the consequential tariff case on behalf of small businesses and won.
Responding to a question on whether the newly announced tariffs would remain in force, Katyal expressed strong doubts. “I suspect they are going to be challenged very quickly,” he said, indicating that the legal sustainability of the tariffs remains uncertain despite the Trump administration framing them as temporary and compliant with statutory provisions. “If he is so convinced tariffs are a good idea, he should go to Congress and say, ‘I need these tariffs'," Katyal told Times Now. "Go and persuade Congress," he said.
Responding to the question of how Trump's tariffs have affected businesses in America and abroad, Katyal said, "It's been horrific for both small and large businesses. There has been a massive increase in prices, meaning that people can't afford what they used to be able to afford, so they don’t buy them. This has pushed many companies to the brink of bankruptcy or into bankruptcy."
"Illegal tariffs must be refunded. The Trump administration has agreed that they have to give refunds plus interest," he added.
Neal Katyal is the son of Indian immigrants and the former Acting Solicitor General of the United States under President Barack Obama. On his Indian roots, Katyal said, "I love India, I love being back, and I love seeing my family."
His remarks come days after the US Supreme Court struck down Trump’s sweeping tariff measures. The Supreme Court struck down Trump's far-reaching global tariffs on Friday. The court ruled 6-3 that he had exceeded his authority in imposing broad tariffs under emergency powers.
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.
On Saturday, 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."
"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. 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)," Katyal said in a post after Trump's announcement.
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