WASHINGTON: Fresh US tariffs on imported goods came into effect on Tuesday, as President Donald Trump moved to rebuild his trade agenda after the Supreme Court ruled against a swath of his global duties.
The new tariffs, initially set at 10 per cent, are justified as a means “to deal with the large and serious United States balance-of-payments deficits,” according to a White House press release.
Trump has since vowed to raise this level to 15pc, with exclusions expected to remain for goods covered by sector-specific investigations and the US-Mexico-Canada trade pact. The US president has doubled down on imposing tariffs on trading partners since the high court on Friday struck down many of his sweeping and often arbitrary duties, in a rebuke of his signature economic policy.
His sector-specific tariffs on goods like steel and autos remain intact, but the ruling sets the stage for a complex fight for refunds elsewhere. The new duty taking effect on Tuesday only lasts for 150 days unless extended by Congress and is widely seen as a bridge towards more durable trade policy.
US Customs and Border Protection has said it would stop collecting tariffs struck down by the court starting Tuesday, too. It separately said it would start collecting the new 10pc tariffs on Tuesday.
The conservative-majority court ruled six to three that Trump had exceeded his authority in using a 1977 law to impose sudden tariffs on individual countries. Trump’s new tariff will apply to $1.2 trillion worth of imports on an annual basis or about 34pc of total goods imported, said Erica York, vice president of federal tax policy at the Tax Foundation.
“The Trump tariffs amounted to an average tax increase per US household of $1,000 in 2025,” she added.
With Trump’s global tariffs ruled illegal, his new and existing duties are still set to “result in a household burden of $700 in 2026,” she said.
Published in Dawn, February 25th, 2026
