President Donald Trump announced Saturday that he is raising a global tariff to 15%, just one day after the Supreme Court struck down his authority to levy sweeping tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
Fox News reported that the move escalates the administration's trade agenda and signals that a 6-3 ruling from the nation's highest court will slow the pace but not change the direction.
Trump posted the announcement on Truth Social, framing it as a direct response to the Court's decision:
"Based on a thorough, detailed, and complete review of the ridiculous, poorly written, and extraordinarily anti-American decision on Tariffs issued yesterday, after MANY months of contemplation, by the United States Supreme Court, please let this statement serve to represent that I, as President of the United States of America, will be, effective immediately, raising the 10% Worldwide Tariff on Countries, many of which have been 'ripping' the U.S. off for decades, without retribution (until I came along!), to the fully allowed, and legally tested, 15% level."
The 15% tariff replaces the 10% global tariff Trump signed from the Oval Office just Friday evening, which was itself a rapid pivot after the Court's ruling landed hours earlier.
The timeline tells a story about speed of execution.
On Friday, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the president lacked authority to impose sweeping tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
By Friday afternoon, Trump was at a White House press briefing announcing a new global tariff order, this time issued under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. The order applies in addition to the standard tariffs already in place. By Friday evening, Trump confirmed the signing on Truth Social.
"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."
By Saturday, 10% became 15%.
Trump called the Court's ruling "deeply disappointing" and said he was "ashamed" of certain members of the Court, though he did not name them. He also noted he would pursue "alternatives" to tariffs under emergency law, without specifying what form those alternatives might take.
The significance here is not just the tariff rate. It is the legal foundation. The Supreme Court blocked tariffs levied under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The administration responded by shifting to Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, a different statute with its own authorization framework.
This matters because the administration is not retreating from its trade posture. It is rerouting it through different legal channels.
The Court closed one door. The executive branch walked through another within hours. Whether opponents mount a fresh legal challenge to the Section 122 authority remains to be seen, but the speed of the pivot left little oxygen for the ruling to be framed as a defeat.
Trump's Saturday post made clear that this is a floor, not a ceiling. He wrote that in the coming months, his administration will "determine and issue the new and legally permissible Tariffs," suggesting the 15% rate is an interim measure while broader trade policy takes shape under whatever legal authorities survive judicial review.
"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 - GREATER THAN EVER BEFORE!!!"
Friday's ruling was immediately treated as a wall. The assumption, predictable and premature, was that the Supreme Court had ended the tariff agenda. Six justices said the president could not use one particular statute to impose these tariffs. They did not say the president could not impose tariffs.
That distinction matters enormously, and the speed with which the administration exploited it should tell observers something about how thoroughly the legal groundwork had been prepared. This was not improvisation.
The pivot to Section 122 happened within hours of the ruling, complete with a signed executive order and a public announcement. You don't draft and execute that kind of legal and logistical maneuver on the fly.
The broader pattern is familiar. The left celebrates a procedural win. The administration adapts and advances the same policy objective through a different mechanism. The celebration turns out to be premature. The policy moves forward.
The 15% global tariff is now the baseline. The administration has signaled that additional, country-specific tariff structures are coming in the months ahead, calibrated to whatever legal authority the courts will sustain.
The mention of "alternatives" to emergency-law tariffs suggests the White House legal team is already mapping multiple paths forward.
For trading partners who assumed the Supreme Court ruling bought them breathing room, Saturday's announcement compressed that timeline to roughly twelve hours.
Countries that have been, in Trump's framing, "ripping" off the United States for decades now face a higher tariff rate than they did before the Court intervened on their behalf.
The Court spoke on Friday. The president answered on Saturday. The tariff went up, not down.
