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.