US President Donald Trump has said that he will impose global tariffs of 15%, as he continued to rail against a Supreme Court ruling that struck down his previous import taxes.
Trump said on Friday that he would replace the tariffs scrapped by the court with a 10% levy on all goods coming into the US.
But on Saturday, he announced on Truth Social that this would be increased to 15%.
These will come into force on Tuesday 24 February and can only stay in place for around five months before the administration must seek congressional approval.
The new 15% tax rate raises questions for countries such as the UK and Australia which had agreed a 10% tariff with the US.
Trump said his administration had reached the decision to lift the levy following a review of the “ridiculous, poorly written, and extraordinarily anti-American decision on Tariffs issued yesterday”.
In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court found that the president had overstepped his powers when he introduced sweeping global tariffs last 0 using a 1977 law known as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
Trump’s tariffs are a key plank of his economic policy which he has said will encourage businesses to invest and produce goods in the US rather than overseas.
Immediately following the ruling, Trump said that he was “ashamed of certain members of the court” and called the justices who rejected his trade policy “fools”.
The decision to strike down the tariffs was joined by the court’s three liberal justices, Chief Justice John Roberts, a conservative nominated by George W. Bush and two justices nominated by Trump: Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch.
Three conservative justices, Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh and Samuel Alito, dissented.
Source: BBC
