AsianFin -- U.S. President Donald Trump warned the trade deals signed with trading partners would be wound off if he lose a make-or-break case for most his sweeping tariffs in the Supreme Court.
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Trump on Wednesday said his administration would prevail in the case, and if the Supreme Court doesn’t uphold his tariffs, the U.S. government may have to “unwind” existing trade deals it reached with the European Union, Japan and South Korea. "If we don't win that case, our country is going to suffer so greatly," Trump told reporters before meeting with Polish President Karol Nawrocki. "These deals are all done. I guess we'd have to unwind them."
Trump took the U.S.-EU trade agreement for instance. "We made a deal with the European Union where they’re paying us almost a trillion dollars. And you know what? They’re happy. It’s done. These deals are all done," he said. "I guess we’d have to unwind them."
Trump threatened that rescinding the tariffs would cost the U.S. a lot. "Our country has a chance to be unbelievably rich again. It could also be unbelievably poor again. If we don’t win that case, our country is going to suffer so greatly, so greatly," he said.
Trump said the federal government would take the fight over tariffs to the Supreme Court to reverse an appeals court’s ruling finding them illegal. Recent reported fillings showed the Trump administration is urging the Supreme Court to quickly take up the case.
The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to rule on whether that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA) authorizes the tariffs imposed by the president pursuant to the national emergencies declared or continued in his five executive orders this year. And if the IEEPA authorizes the tariffs, another question for the Supreme Court to decide is whether the statute unconstitutionally delegates legislative authority to the president, according to a filling obtained by NBC News on Wednesday.
The administration also submitted a motion to expedite the Supreme Court’s ruling, according to another filing. It showed Solicitor General D. John Sauer asked the court to accept a schedule with a decision on the petition for a writ of certiorati by September 10, and upon a grant of certiorari, to expedite consideration of the case so that oral arguments can be heard heard as soon as the first week of November and a final decision on the legality of the disputed tariffs can be issued soon afterward.
That schedule, if accepted, would materially fast-track the ruling of Trump’s sweeping tariffs. The Supreme Court normally would take as long as early next summer to issue such a decision.
The fillings are the latest move by the Trump administration to overturn a federal appeals court’s ruling that the president’s use of emergency powers to impose worldwide tariffs is unlawful.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C. found Trump overstepped his presidential powers with his global tariffs. The court said in a filling that it agreed that the IEEPA ’s grant of presidential authority to “regulate” imports does not authorize the tariffs imposed by his five executive orders.
The Trump administration had argued that a president can unilaterally impose wide-ranging, global tariffs by invoking IEEPA to protect the U.S. from international threats. Enacted in 1977, IEEPA authorizes the president to “regulate” international commerce after declaring a national emergency. But the Federal Circuit on Friday upheld a lower-court ruling against Trump’s tariff.
The ruling shot down most of tariffs that the Trump administration has implemented so far this year, including reciprocal tariffs on all the trading partners and trafficking tariffs hitting Canada, Mexico and China. “We dissent from the majority’s affirmance of the Court of International Trade (CIT)’s summary judgment that the reciprocal and trafficking tariffs are unlawful,” the appeals court in its opinion released on Friday concluded.
The senior U.S. government officials are making backup plans. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Monday that he felt confident the Supreme Court will back Trump's use of the IEEPA to impose broad tariffs, but said the administration is working on a Plan B in case it does not.
"I'm confident the Supreme Court will uphold it - will uphold the president's authority to use IEEPA. And there are lots of other authorities that can be used - not as efficient, not as powerful," Bessent said. One of those authorities could be Section 338 of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, he added.
