sábado, 21 de fevereiro de 2026
Trump Says He Will Raise Global Tariff to 15 Percent
Trump
Says He Will Raise Global Tariff to 15 Percent
The move
signaled that the president would press ahead with steep global import taxes
despite the legal setback from the Supreme Court.
Tony Romm Ana Swanson
By Tony
Romm and Ana Swanson
Reporting
from Washington
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/21/business/trump-tariffs.html
Feb. 21,
2026
Updated
2:01 p.m. ET
President
Trump said on Saturday that he would raise his new, global tariff to 15
percent, a day after he took steps to replicate some of the punishing duties
that had been struck down by the Supreme Court.
Mr. Trump
announced the sudden change in a post on social media, and said the policy
would take effect immediately, as he signaled that he would press ahead with
his aggressive trade strategy despite
suffering a major legal setback.
For some
countries, such as Britain and Australia, Mr. Trump’s new 15 percent tariff
will actually be higher than the rates that previously applied to their exports
to the United States. For others, like China, Vietnam, India and Brazil, the
new rate will be significantly lower. The previous set of duties were
invalidated on Friday, after a majority of the court’s justices found that the
president did not have the authority to issue them.
President
Trump ramped up his tariff campaign, one day after the Supreme Court
invalidated a large chunk of duties he had previously imposed on most of the
world’s imports.
Mr. Trump
had initially set his replacement global rate at 10 percent, using a provision
in a law — never before invoked by a president — that allows him to impose an
across-the-board tariff for 150 days unless Congress agrees to extend it. In
the directive, he indicated it would take effect after midnight on February 24.
The
statute caps the rate at 15 percent, limiting the president’s ability to lift
it again, though Mr. Trump has signaled he plans to use other trade powers in
the coming months to add further taxes on imports.
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“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 president wrote on
Truth Social.
“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!!!” he continued.
Some
White House staff members were caught off guard by the increase, people
familiar with the matter said. It came less than 24 hours after the president
had announced his 10 percent rate. Since the decision, Mr. Trump has railed
angrily against the Supreme Court justices who ruled against his tariffs and
threatened to impose even bigger duties against the world.
The
ruling extends a period of uncertainty for companies and countries, which have
struggled to cope with the president’s aggressive and fluctuating tariff
threats since he officially embarked on his trade offensive last spring. The
brinkmanship has strained alliances, rattled global markets and challenged the
U.S. economy, while leaving American businesses and consumers to shoulder some
of the costs from taxes applied to their imports.
But Mr.
Trump has remained intent on tariffs, even in legal defeat. In reprising some
of his duties, the president has doubled down on a strategy that he believes
will raise money for the United States, encourage more domestic manufacturing
and achieve geopolitical objectives beyond trade.
Mr. Trump
has also leveraged the threat of tariffs to force other countries to reach
favorable trade agreements with the United States. Many of those deals were
cemented using tariffs issued under the International Emergency Economic Powers
Act, or IEEPA, the approach that the Supreme Court invalidated on Friday.
Still,
Mr. Trump has warned other nations that they should stick to trade deals they
negotiated over the past year, or risk being hit with new tariffs. “Some of
them stand, many of them stand, some of them won’t, and they’ll be replaced
with the other tariffs,” he said at a defiant news conference after the
justices handed down their ruling.
But the
sudden removal of his emergency tariffs, which had encouraged other governments
to make trade concessions to the United States, is still likely to raise doubts
among foreign leaders about whether to keep the deals they agreed to.
Some
governments have faced domestic criticism for concessions made to the United
States — like in India, where farmers have condemned Prime Minister Narendra
Modi’s move to open agricultural markets. Indonesia had just signed its trade
deal with the United States on Thursday, adopting zero tariffs on American
goods in return for a 19 percent tariff rate on its exports.
The Trump
administration has indicated that it will use other legal authorities, like
Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, to impose tariffs on countries
individually based on their trade practices. The administration has also
suggested it could expand the national security-related tariffs it has issued
on various industries, like steel, minerals and cars, under Section 232 of the
Trade Act of 1962. But those moves will take some time to prepare.
In the
meantime, exports from all countries will now face the 15 percent tariff rate,
regardless of their trade practices, or the concessions they have made. Some
trade experts said that the flat rate could end up benefiting lower-cost
producers in places like China and other Asian nations, whose goods would be
relatively cheap even after a 15 percent import tax.
The new
global tariff does have certain exemptions. Mr. Trump moved late Friday to
carve out certain products, including beef and other agricultural products,
which he had previously spared from the steepest import taxes to keep prices
from rising.
Nor will
the new rate affect goods like foreign autos and steel, which are already
subject to tariffs imposed on national security grounds. Mr. Trump preserved a
policy that upholds the terms of a trade deal he previously brokered with
Canada and Mexico, allowing imports covered by the pact to remain tariff free.
He also added some new exemptions to the tariffs — for example, for Central
American countries included in a trade deal signed in 2004.
Tyler
Pager contributed reporting.
Tony Romm
is a reporter covering economic policy and the Trump administration for The
Times, based in Washington.
Ana
Swanson covers trade and international economics for The Times and is based in
Washington. She has been a journalist for more than a decade.
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