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By Hugh Cameron and Shane Croucher
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U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said higher tariff rates are coming, as the administration tries to reassert its aggressive trade policy in the wake of the Supreme Court's ruling that struck down President Donald Trump's use of emergency powers to impose import levies.
"We expect to have continuity in what we’re doing," Greer said Wednesday on Fox Business' Mornings with Maria.
"Even right now, we have the 10 percent tariff. It'll go up to 15 for some and then it may go higher for others, and I think it will be in line with the types of tariffs we've been seeing."
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Why It Matters
The Supreme Court ruling has appeared to some a serious setback for the government as it attempts to advance Trump’s trade agenda—focused on trimming deficits and generating revenue for the Treasury. However, as Greer said, the administration remains committed to pursuing these central objectives, and will rely on alternative tariff authorities to do so if necessary.
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What To Know
On Friday, hours after the Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 vote that Trump lacked the authority to impose tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), the president signed an executive order enacting a temporary, 10 percent global tariff. Trump said he would be increasing this to 15 percent in a post to Truth Social on Saturday, but the duties came into effect at the lower rate on Tuesday.
The administration is applying this new tariff under Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act, allowing presidents to impose duties of up to 15 percent for a period of 150 days without congressional approval to remedy a “fundamental international payments problem.”
According to The Budget Lab at Yale University, the overall average effective tariff rate stood at around 16 percent before the Supreme Court ruling. This dropped to 9.1 percent following the decision, but would increase to nearly 14 percent with the Section 122 tariffs imposed at the 15 percent level.
The administration had earlier announced a broad set of exemptions for the Section 122 tariffs, including for certain critical minerals, resources that cannot be grown or produced in the U.S. and goods already covered by existing free trade arrangements like the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).
As Greer observed, one limitation of the new Section 122 tariff is that this pulls tariff rates for certain countries—namely China—lower than they were under IEEPA.
And on Wednesday, regarding China specifically, with which the U.S. had in 2025 come to a deal that ended months of sparring over trade, Greer said the administration is looking to keep tariffs at the current level, within the 35 to 50 percent range.
“We expect that level to remain in place," Greer said. "We don’t intend to escalate beyond that. We intend to really stick to the deal that we had before."
But experts have already said that these new tariffs—even at 10 percent—could invite scrutiny and legal challenges.
“Section 122 is designed to address balance-of-payments pressures, and the scope and duration of measures is more narrow,” economics professor Thiemo Fetzer told Newsweek earlier this week. “Since it is invoked in the context of the struck down measures, courts may be much more likely to see this as a reaction by executive power to circumvent the rule of law.”
“The developing consensus of economists is that the U.S. economy does not currently meet the statutory criteria for invoking [Section 122],” said William Reinsch, senior adviser for the Economics Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). “That may be a winning argument, but it's probably irrelevant, since it's hard to see any litigation wrapping up in less than 150 days.”
Section 122 tariffs can only be imposed for a period of 150 days, after which Trump would need to go to Congress to extend these, or turn to some other authority to advance his trade agenda.
What People Are Saying
Jamieson Greer told Fox Business on Wednesday: “We’re trying to have continuity with the program that we’ve had over the past year. When we talk to businesses, even when we talk to foreign countries, what they want to know is what is the plan. And so the plan that we’ve established over the past year—where we’ve had booming GDP, wage increases at the same time as tariffs—we’re just continuing that as closely as we can to avoid disruption.”
Lizbeth Levinson, co-chair of Fox Rothschild’s International Trade Practice Group, told Newsweek: “The Section 122 duties are only valid for 150 days. An interesting question arises as to whether Trump can continually renew the tariffs every 150 days. The purpose of Section 122 is to remedy trade [deficits]. Countries that have a trade surplus with the United States may have a legal argument that the statute does not allow for duties to be imposed on them. These are both grounds that may result in additional legal pushback.”
What Happens Next
On Wednesday, Greer said that the administration was exploring ways to advance its trade agenda after the 150-day window on Section 122 shuts. These include relying on Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, which allows presidents to restrict imports if these threaten national security, or using Section 301 of the Trade Act to investigate and respond to “unfair trading practices.”
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