OPINION:
Last month, the Supreme Court struck down the tariffs the Trump administration imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
The court ruled 6-3 that the nearly 50-year-old law doesn’t authorize the president to impose tariffs. It doesn’t mention tariffs, and no commander in chief, until President Trump, has ever invoked it to impose any tariffs, let alone large and sweeping global ones.
Polling shows that the public sentiment toward tariffs has soured considerably. A Fox News poll of registered voters in late January found 63% disapproval and 37% approval of the administration’s tariffs, a marked decline from November 2024. Then, a CBS News-YouGov poll showed that Americans favored tariffs on imported goods by a 52% to 48% margin.
Despite the growing unpopularity of the tariffs, the court’s ruling doesn’t appear to be the end of the line for tariffs in this administration. After the decision, the administration imposed 10% worldwide tariffs under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974.
Section 122 empowers the president to impose a temporary (150-day) import surcharge of up to 15% to deal with large and serious U.S. balance-of-payment deficits. However, unlike the trade balance, the balance of payments is nearly balanced, so it’s unclear whether the president has legal authority to use Section 122 at this time.
The 1974 law predates the emergence of the free-floating global currency markets that now dominate global commerce. With such a currency exchange system, it’s almost impossible to have a serious payment imbalance, and the U.S. hasn’t experienced one over the past half-century.
Regardless, the president does have some other narrower tariff authorities on which to fall back. He would be well advised to reconsider his commitment to tariffs on goods imported from friendly nations.
During the 2024 presidential campaign, tariffs were sold as a way to protect American manufacturing and bring jobs back to the U.S. Yet, instead of leading to a renaissance in manufacturing, since the global tariffs were announced on “Liberation Day” in April, manufacturing jobs have continued to decline and overall job creation has slowed to a crawl.
The jobs data is even more disappointing because Congress and the Trump administration have enacted other very pro-growth economic policies, including regulatory reforms and the tax cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
If not for the tariffs, the economy would likely be booming right now.
Instead of ushering in a Golden Age for the American economy, tariffs have proved an obstacle for American workers and businesses and a golden opportunity for China. Trade between the U.S. and China is down because of U.S.-China tariffs, but China has more than made up the difference by increasing trade with the rest of the world.
Trade barriers and the unpredictability of U.S. trade policy have pushed America’s trading partners to strengthen their economic ties with China.
The first Trump administration brought attention to the risks of overreliance on China for certain critical or sensitive products, such as minerals essential to the production of chips and military equipment. The administration started the U.S. on a path of decoupling from (or at least de-risking from) China.
Decoupling from a major economy is a slow process, so trade with China didn’t stop overnight. Yet within a few short years, U.S. imports from China (which had doubled from 2005 to 2017) were on the decline, falling 17% from 2018 to 2019 and another 4% in 2020.
Now, instead of the U.S. and other countries decoupling from China, a growing number of U.S. allies are looking for ways to decouple from the United States.
The longer the U.S. wages an indiscriminate, multifront trade war against the rest of the world, the more it will push companies and countries to cut ties with the U.S and into the arms of China. The worst economic effects of such a process may be yet to come.
Trade relationships, once broken, are difficult to rebuild. Instead of isolating American businesses and consumers, the administration should use the legal tariffs in its tool kit strategically, to box out China and other foreign adversaries while fostering more trade with free nations.
• Preston Brashers is a research fellow with the Plymouth Institute at Advancing American Freedom.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.