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Trump says he has signed an order imposing a 10% tariff on all imports
Donald Trump has announced on his social media platform that he has signed an order to impose tariffs on every nation, although he made no reference to what legal authority he was relying on to do so.
“It is my Great Honor to have just signed, from the Oval Office, a Global 10% Tariff on all Countries, which will be effective almost immediately,” the president posted.
Minutes later the White House released a fact sheet explaining that Trump had signed a proclamation “invoking his authority under section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974” to impose “a temporary import duty”.
Last year, the Congressional Research Service, which provides legislative research and analysis to lawmakers, explained that, temporary, legal authority:
Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 directs the President to take measures that may include a temporary import surcharge (tariff) when necessary to address “large and serious United States balance-of-payments deficits” or certain other situations that present “fundamental international payments problems.” Section 122 has never been used, and therefore courts have had no occasion to interpret its language. Some news reports have noted this provision appears to authorize the President to impose across-the-board tariffs on imports in some circumstances.
The law does, however, place limits on such tariffs which may be imposed by the president for “a period not exceeding 150 days,” and are “not to exceed 15 percent”.
Key events
Federal judge in West Virginia compares ICE to ‘secret police’ in order releasing asylum-seeker detained without cause
In a scathing opinion, a senior federal judge in West Virginia on Thursday ordered the release of a 21-year-old Salvadoran man with a pending asylum claim and legal work permit who was stopped without cause and detained by masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers on 7 January.
The US district court judge, Joseph Goodwin, prefaced his order granting the release of Anderson Jesus Urquilla-Ramos by saying that “Antiseptic judicial rhetoric cannot do justice” to the unrestrained exercise of power by masked federal agents.
He continued:
Across the interior of the United States, agents of the federal government—masked, anonymous, armed with military weapons, operating from unmarked vehicles, acting without warrants of any kind—are seizing persons for civil immigration violations and imprisoning them without any semblance of due process. The systematic character of this practice and its deliberate elimination of every structural feature that distinguishes constitutional authority from raw force place it beyond the reach of ordinary legal description. It is an assault on the constitutional order. It is what the Fourth Amendment was written to prevent. It is what the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment forbids.
“The use of masks and other tactics that obscure official identity carries historical and semiotic weight,” Goodwin, who was appointed by Bill Clinton in 1995, added. “In this nation’s history, the Ku Klux Klan relied on masks to terrorize victims while concealing accountability.”
“With this background in mind,” the judge added, “the ICE tactics of anonymous enforcement in this case contravene the history, purpose, and modern interpretation of the Fourth Amendment.”
In his conclusion the judge wrote: “An anonymous government is no government at all. It cannot be held accountable. A masked agent freely uses force without justifying his actions, and the public cannot name him to challenge his conduct. A regime of secret policing has no place in our society.”
Trump attacks supreme court justices he nominated for not being partisan enough
Writing on his social media platform on Friday night, Donald Trump said the six justices who ruled that the tariffs he imposed under the guise of a fictional “emergency” were illegal “should be ashamed of themselves.”
Trump called their decision “ridiculous” but tried to sell his followers on the idea that the temporary import taxes he does have the power to impose, for 150 days, could be even better.
The president then accused the three justices nominated by Republican presidents who ruled that the tariffs were clearly a form of tax that only Congress has the power to impose of not being partisan enough.
Trump blamed two justices he nominated, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, and the chief justice, John Roberts for the ruling he called an “effort to allow Foreign Countries that have been ripping us off for years to continue to do so”.
All three of those justices ruled in Trump’s favor in 2024 when they decided that he had broad immunity from prosecution for having plotted to stay in power after he lost the 2020 presidential election, when his lies about mass voter fraud inspired his supporters to storm the Capitol on January 6 2021 to stop the peaceful transfer of power.
US military announces killing of three suspected drug smugglers in Eastern Pacific
The Pentagon announced on social media that the US military killed three suspected drug smugglers in a strike on a boat in the eastern Pacific on Friday.
The post was accompanied by video said to show the latest strike in a series of 43 attacks since September that have now killed at least 148 people accused by the Pentagon of smuggling drugs by sea in the Pacific and Caribbean.
Those attacks have been described as “a campaign of extrajudicial killings” by legal experts who say they are being conducted “without any credible legal basis.”
White House lists imports that are exempted from new, temporary 10% tax
The White House fact sheet on the new, temporary 10% import tax on goods from all nations includes a list of goods that will “not be subject to the temporary import duty”.
Here is the White House list of imports not subject to the 150-day temporary tax:
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certain critical minerals, metals used in currency and bullion, energy, and energy products;
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natural resources and fertilizers that cannot be grown, mined, or otherwise produced in the United States or grown, mined, or otherwise produced in sufficient quantities to meet domestic demand;
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certain agricultural products, including beef, tomatoes, and oranges;
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passenger vehicles, certain light trucks, certain medium and heavy-duty vehicles, buses, and certain parts of passenger vehicles, light trucks, heavy-duty vehicles, and buses;
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informational materials (e.g., books), donations, and accompanied baggage.
The White House also says the following goods will not be subject to the temporary import duty:
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textiles and apparel articles that enter duty-free as a good of Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, or Nicaragua under the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement.
White House says Trump’s temporary global import duty of 10% takes effect on Tuesday
According to a newly released White House fact sheet, Donald Trump just “signed a Proclamation imposing a temporary import duty” of 10% on all imports to the United States from every nation for a period of 150 days.
The proclamation text is not yet public, but the fact sheet says that the new global import tax will be imposed starting at 12:01 am Eastern Time on Tuesday, 24 February.
If the new global import tax remains in place for the full duration, it would expire in late July.
Trump says he has signed an order imposing a 10% tariff on all imports
Donald Trump has announced on his social media platform that he has signed an order to impose tariffs on every nation, although he made no reference to what legal authority he was relying on to do so.
“It is my Great Honor to have just signed, from the Oval Office, a Global 10% Tariff on all Countries, which will be effective almost immediately,” the president posted.
Minutes later the White House released a fact sheet explaining that Trump had signed a proclamation “invoking his authority under section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974” to impose “a temporary import duty”.
Last year, the Congressional Research Service, which provides legislative research and analysis to lawmakers, explained that, temporary, legal authority:
Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 directs the President to take measures that may include a temporary import surcharge (tariff) when necessary to address “large and serious United States balance-of-payments deficits” or certain other situations that present “fundamental international payments problems.” Section 122 has never been used, and therefore courts have had no occasion to interpret its language. Some news reports have noted this provision appears to authorize the President to impose across-the-board tariffs on imports in some circumstances.
The law does, however, place limits on such tariffs which may be imposed by the president for “a period not exceeding 150 days,” and are “not to exceed 15 percent”.
At briefing on tariffs, Trump picked reporters from pro-Trump outlets to ask him friendly questions
Donald Trump’s news conference in the White House briefing room earlier on Friday was a reminder of just how much his staff has done to surround the president with friendly reporters from pro-Trump outlets he can turn to when he wants to avoid difficult questions from nonpartisan journalists.
The event began with the bizarre spectacle of Trump reading aloud a statement attacking the supreme court justices who ruled that his tariffs were illegal which was clearly crafted in the form of a social media post, since it ended with the words “Thank you for your attention to this matter,” which the president also read out loud.
When he then took questions, Trump repeatedly stopped nonpartisan journalists from asking him questions by cutting them off and pointing to correspondents from fringe outlets known for their fanatically pro-Trump coverage.
That began when the president invited the first question by pointing to the back of the room, and then, when the former Fox News correspondent Jon Decker started to speak, Trump cut him off and indicated that he was giving the floor to Cara Castronuova, a former fitness influencer who now represents Lindell TV, the channel for fans of the pillow salesman turned conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell. Castronuova asked Trump if he hoped to soon replace the court’s two most rightwing justices, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, with younger ideologues.
Trump was noncommittal, but the question was clearly part of a campaign to get the two justices to retire while Trump still has a Republican Senate to confirm their replacements.
When Lindell TV shared the exchange of social media, the outlet made that clear in a caption that read: “Amy Coney Barrett and crew just is not cutting it. These dangerous liberals in disguise must be vetted in different ways moving forward. Imagine if the great Justices Thomas and Alito at the end of Trump’s term were able to personally hand pick their successors …. That’s the plan. Re-share this to get this idea into the universe.”
Minutes later, Trump pointed to the other side of the room, and the CNN correspondent Kristen Holmes asked him if he regretted appointing Amy Coney Barrett to the supreme court. Trump cut her off, saying, “I don’t talk to CNN, it’s fake news” and asked Daniel Baldwin of the pro-Trump cable channel One America News to speak.
Baldwin, as he often does, framed his question as a hymn of praise for the president. “Yesterday, you made the case that the economy is the hottest it’s been in a long time,” Baldwin said. “January jobs report beat expectations, CPI report beat expectation, real wages are up. What would you tell Americans who are worried that this decision will kind of throw the economy that you have projected going in the right direction at a very rapid pace off track?”
“Well, thank you for the question,” Trump replied, before turning to his familiar talking points about how great tariffs are.
The president then took another friendly question from Owen Jensen, the White House correspondent for EWTN, or Eternal Word Television Network, a pro-Trump Catholic network and invited Monica Paige, a former One American News reporter who now works for the rightwing Turning Point USA, to help him drive home his message. “I know you speak to a lot of factory workers, a lot of manufacturing workers,” Paige began. “What does this supreme court ruling say- what’s that message to those factory workers?”
Trump took the opportunity to spend the next three-plus minutes repeating his familiar boasts about what he calls his shrewd use of tariffs in trade deals.
FCC chair urges broadcasters to commit to daily airing of US national anthem or pledge of allegiance
In a letter to the broadcasters he regulates, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, urged the nation’s privately owned television and radio stations to support the Trump administration’s “celebration of America’s 250th birthday by airing patriotic, pro-America content that celebrates the American journey and inspires its citizens by highlighting the historic accomplishments of this great nation from our founding through the Trump Administration today”.
Among Carr’s idea for such programming, he suggested something more often seen on state television in authoritarian countries: “Starting each broadcast day with the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ or Pledge of Allegiance.”
Court did not direct Trump to issue refunds on his illegal tariffs, but demand for them is growing
As a miffed Donald Trump pointed out in his remarks earlier, the US supreme court did not explicitly address the question of whether or not his administration is now required to issue refunds to American importers who have already paid the tariffs the court held to be illegal.
“We’ve taken in hundreds of billions of dollars,” Trump noted. “What happens to all the money that we took in? It wasn’t discussed. Wouldn’t you think they would have put one sentence in there saying that keep the money or don’t keep the money?”
Critics of the president’s tariffs immediately argued that refunds are, in fact necessary.
The governor of Illinois, Democrat JB Pritzker, sent a letter to the president demanding “a refund of $1,700 for every family in Illinois”, or $8.7bn, with a mocked up invoice that described Trump’s account as “Past Due – Delinquent”.
“America’s working families deserve a refund,” Pritzker said in a social media video. “Cut the check, Donald.”
The Nobel-winning economist Paul Krugman made the same point in more erudite language on his Substack, noting that the ruling was “scathing and said clearly that Trump’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act was a usurpation of taxation authority that belongs to Congress: “We are therefore skeptical that in IEEPA – and IEEPA alone – Congress hid a delegation of its birth-right power to tax.”
“Trump announced that he would immediately use another little-known legal route – Section 122 – to impose immediate 10 percent tariffs across the board. Section 122 tariffs can only last 150 days, but he claimed that during that stretch he would find ways to use other authorities to maintain high tariffs,” Krugman added. “I don’t see, by the way, how such alternatives would obviate the need to refund the tariffs already collected. If you seized money without constitutional authority, finding other revenue sources going forward doesn’t make the original seizure legal.”
An analysis from the Penn-Wharton Budget Model suggests that “reversing the IEEPA tariffs will generate up to $175 billion in refunds”.
“The decision does not explicitly order immediate refunds,” experts at the president’s alma mater wrote. “However, the decision that the tariffs were collected illegally has opened the door to refund claims. Importers generally have 180 days after goods are ‘liquidated’ to protest and request refunds from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.”
In remarks to the Economic Club of Dallas, Trump’s treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, responded to a question about the upcoming “food fight” over the approximately $175bn in tariff revenue already collected under the tariffs by saying: “I got a feeling the American people won’t see it.”
Many experts have suggested that Bessent is correct that American consumers who paid higher prices for imported goods are not likely to see refunds, which would go to the import firms that paid the taxes.
“The government should ensure a timely and simple refund process,” Erica York, of the non-partisan Tax Foundation, argued on social media. “Refunds will go to importers of record, and in many cases, that means the refund may not go to the people who ultimately bore the tariff cost.”
Here’s a recap of the day so far
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In a stunning rebuke against the Trump administration’s economic policy, the supreme court ruled many of the president’s sweeping tariffs illegal. In a 6-3 decision, the court held that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) – a 1977 statute which grants the president authority to regulate or prohibit certain international transactions during a national emergency – does not authorize Donald Trump to unilaterally impose the tariffs. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh dissented.
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Trump, incensed but determined, assailed the ruling at an impromptu press conference. The president called the decision “deeply disappointing” and said he was “ashamed” of the justices who ruled against his use of IEEPA. He hurled insults at them while speaking to reporters, calling them “fools and lap dogs”, “very unpatriotic and disloyal to our constitution” and even made baseless claims that they were being swayed by “foreign interests”. In contrast, he praised the conservative justices who dissented, highlighting justice Brett Kavanaugh’s written opinion.
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The president quickly announced that that he would impose 10% global tariffs under Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act. This statute allows the president impose levies for up to 150 days, before requiring congressional approval to extend them. He also stressed that the national‑security tariffs and those tied to “unreasonable” trade practices from other countries will stay in place.
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When it comes to the refunds from the now-invalidated tarriffs already paid under IEEPA, Trump railed against the lack of guidance in the court’s ruling today. “What happens to all the money that we took in? It wasn’t discussed,” he told reporters. “Wouldn’t you think they would have put one sentence in there saying that keep the money or don’t keep the money … I guess it has to get litigated for the next two years.”
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Lawmakers generally responded along party lines. Democrats welcomed the court’s decision, while many Republicans said they respected the ruling but would work with the administration to keep the tariffs in place. Trump, for his part, didn’t say whether he regretted nominating Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett to the bench after the sided with liberal justices today. Instead, he said their concurrence was “an embarrassment to their families”.
After Trump’s press conference today, Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren rebuked the president’s plan to use another statute to implement a 10% global tariff moving forward.
“Donald Trump illegally stole money from the American people. He should give it back to them,” she said. “Instead Trump is scheming up new ways to force Americans to pay even more.”
In a post on social media, vice-president JD Vance said the supreme court had effectively concluded that Congress “despite giving the president the ability to ‘regulate imports,’ didn’t actually mean it”.
Vance blasted the ruling – which found the administration’s use of IEEPA to justify its sweeping tariffs unconstitutional – as “lawlessness from the Court, plain and simple”. He argued the “only effect” would be to make it harder for the president to “protect American industries and supply chain resiliency.”
Throughout his press conference, Trump oscillated between railing against today’s supreme court ruling, and assuring reporters that his alternative avenues to implementing tariffs would result in getting the US “more money”.
“The process takes a little more time,” Trump said. “Great certainty has been brought back to the economy of the United States … we have the hottest country in the world. We’re going to keep it that way.”
An important note about today’s impromptu news conference – where Donald Trump assailed the supreme court’s ruling that struck down many of his tariffs. The president used the moment to underscore how deeply he prizes loyalty from the judiciary.
He blasted the justices who invalidated his use of IEEPA to impose sweeping levies as “fools and lap dogs”, while singling out the three conservative dissenters – Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh – for praise.
Trump highlighted Kavanaugh’s dissent, which argued that other legal pathways remain for a president to impose tariffs. Trump announced that he plans to pursue some of those options.
“I’m so proud of him,” the president said of Kavanaugh, whom he nominated in his first term, while lauding the justice’s “genius and his great ability”.
Donald Trump didn’t say whether he regretted nominating Neil Gorsuch or Amy Coney Barrett to the supreme court, after they concurred that the president’s use of IEEPA to justify global tariffs is illegal in today’s ruling.
“I think the decision was terrible,” Trump said. “I think it’s an embarrassment to their families, if you want to know the truth, the two of them.”
Trump says that supreme court justices who ruled against sweeping tariffs are ‘barely’ invited to State of the Union
Donald Trump said today that the six supreme court justices who ruled agains his global tariffs under IEEPA are “barely” invited to next week’s State of the Union address at the US Capitol.
“Honestly, I couldn’t care less if they come,” the president said.
Donald Trump didn’t add any substantial evidence for his claims that justices on the supreme court who ruled against his IEEPA tariffs today are being “swayed by foreign interests”.
He didn’t name specific foreign actors, but claimed they have “undue influence” over some of the jurists.
“Whether it’s through fear or respect or friendships, I don’t know, but I know some of the people that were involved on the other side, and I don’t like them. I think they’re real slime balls,” Trump added.
When asked whether he plans to extend the 10% global tariffs indefinitely, Donald Trump seemed to completely ignore the framework of Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act – which he’s using to implement the duties.
“We have a right to do pretty much what we want to do,” he said, ignoring the statute’s requirement for the administration to receive congressional approval for tariffs beyond 150 days.
