Trump’s newest tariffs could cost U.S. families $600 or more

By Brett Rowland
The Center Square

Consumers and U.S. businesses will continue to pay the bulk of President Donald Trump’s tariffs under an untested federal law likely to spark new legal challenges.

New analysis suggests the average U.S. household would lose $600 to $800 under the president’s most recent tariff plan.

Trump cited section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 to impose a temporary 15% tariff on imported goods to address balance-of-payments deficits, which occur when more currency leaves the country than enters it.

Trump said the new tariffs would be more powerful than those the Supreme Court found unconstitutional. Most experts said the law was much more limited in scope than the power Trump was used to wielding before the high court’s ruling on Friday.

Trump’s most recent 15% duty on imports would remain in place for 150 days unless extended by Congress.

Like Trump’s tariffs under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, no other president has used section 122 to impose tariffs around the world, said Alan Wolff, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

“That expiration requirement … poses a political problem for the president. It is highly unlikely that a majority of members of Congress will be willing to reinstate unpopular Trump ‘reciprocal’ tariffs,” the former deputy director-general of the World Trade Organization said in a policy brief. “The tariff issue will, to some degree, figure in every House and Senate electoral race this year if not decided before then.”

Trump initially announced a 10% global tariff on Friday after the Supreme Court decision. He raised that to 15% on Saturday.

On Monday, Trump said he didn’t need Congress’s permission to move forward.

“As President, I do not have to go back to Congress to get approval of Tariffs,” Trump said. “It has already been gotten, in many forms, a long time ago! They were also just reaffirmed by the ridiculous and poorly crafted supreme court decision!”

Even so, Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, called for Congress to enact Trump’s tariffs into law.

“SCOTUS’s outrageous ruling handcuffs our fight against unfair trade that has devastated American workers for decades,” he said in a statement. “This betrayal must be reversed and Republicans must get to work immediately on a reconciliation bill to codify the tariffs that had made our country the hottest country on earth!”

Trump’s 15% global tariff could bring some limited relief to consumers because it’s the ceiling under the law Trump used to issue them.

The Yale Budget Lab found that consumers faced an overall average effective tariff rate of 16% before the Supreme Court ruling. After the ruling, it fell to 9.1% before climbing back to 13.7% when Trump imposed Section 122 tariffs.

The Yale Budget Lab also estimated that the Section 122 tariffs would mean a loss of between $600 and $800 for the average U.S. household.

The Supreme Court, divided 6-3, ruled that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act didn’t give Trump expansive tariff powers to tax goods entering the country. Justices Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh and Samuel Alito dissented. The majority ruled that Trump’s tariffs violated the major questions doctrine, which holds that Congress must speak clearly when it grants significant powers.

“The Framers gave ‘Congress alone’ the power to impose tariffs during peacetime,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Friday the administration will restructure the sweeping import taxes under other legal authorities.

“This administration will invoke alternative legal authorities to replace the IEEPA tariffs,” he said. “We will be leveraging Section 232 and Section 301 tariff authorities that have been validated through thousands of legal challenges.”