(CNN) — President Donald Trump’s trade war is back. After months of relative quiet following the Supreme Court’s February decision that upended the president’s sweeping tariffs on global trading partners, the administration is once again taking aim.
On Friday, levies ranging from 10% to 12.5% on imports from 60 trading partners took effect. Since they largely mirror the now-expired duties Trump had imposed after the Supreme Court ruling, they’re unlikely to lead to significantly higher prices for US consumers.
But that’s assuming Trump stops there. His track record and his recent announcements suggest otherwise.
Since returning to office, Trump has steadily expanded his tariff agenda. What began with broad duties targeting imports from Canada, Mexico and China soon grew to include tariffs on autos, steel and copper before culminating in his sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs aimed at nearly every US trading partner.
Even the Supreme Court ruling that found those tariffs illegal didn’t curb his appetite for tariffs. If anything, it may have made him more determined.
Trump’s latest tariffs are just one piece of a broader effort to rebuild America’s trade agenda. With new investigations underway, the administration is pursuing a trade strategy that could reach far beyond the levies taking effect now. The result could reshape global supply chains, affect the prices that businesses and consumers pay, and redefine America’s relationship with its trading partners.
Over the past several months, officials have been rebuilding much of the tariff regime that existed before the ruling, this time by relying on authorities that trade lawyers generally view as having a firmer legal foundation.
Friday’s tariffs are one example. They stem from a monthslong investigation into allegations of forced labor and largely restore duties that had disappeared after the court’s decision. Earlier this week, tariffs on certain Brazilian goods also took effect under a different legal authority after the administration determined Brazil’s policies had harmed US commerce.
Those laws have historically proven more durable in court. But it doesn’t guarantee they will survive this challenge. The Liberty Justice group, a libertarian-leaning nonprofit public-interest law firm that successfully won the Supreme Court tariff case, quickly moved to file a lawsuit Friday arguing the new levies are also illegal.
“This is the third time the administration has attempted to impose its global tariff policy without following the statutory limits,” Jeffrey Schwab, senior counsel and director of litigation at the Liberty Justice Center, said in a statement. “Section 301 is a targeted, country-specific and practice-specific remedial authority. It is not a freestanding authorization to tax substantially all imports from substantially all countries at preestablished rates.”
Legal or not, using Section 301 doesn’t offer the same speed or flexibility that emergency powers did.
That’s why trade experts are paying close attention to another statute the administration has recently embraced: Section 338 of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, a provision that had never before been used to impose tariffs.
Earlier this week, Trump invoked Section 338 to threaten 50% tariffs on certain Canadian goods, arguing Canada had discriminated against US commerce.
But administration officials also acknowledged the move was tied to Canada’s retaliation against earlier US tariffs. The dynamic underscores how Trump continues to view tariffs as a tool for exerting pressure, both for trade grievances and as leverage in broader negotiations.
Unlike the tariffs enacted Friday, it appears that there’s no “waiting period” for when levies enacted under this law could take effect.
“Some of our clients are extremely worried that this is the first step to larger amounts of tariffs,” Kyle Peacock, principal at Peacock Tariff Consulting, said. Many of his Canadian clients are working around the clock to get products shipped to the US before the levies take effect next month. “A lot are having teams cancel vacations to produce as much as they can and get it out.” Outside of North America, working on these timetables would be much harder, if not impossible, he said.
But wait, there’s more.
In a Truth Social post Friday, Trump said the administration would launch a Section 301 investigation into the European Union over what he called the bloc’s “discriminatory” treatment of major US technology companies, including Google, Apple, Meta and Amazon. Section 301 refers to a provision of a 1974 trade law, the same mechanism that is being used to impose the new tariffs on Friday. In essence, it’s a pathway to higher levies.
There are several other pending investigations, including one exploring “excess capacity” in manufacturing that focuses on 16 of America’s largest trading partners. Any tariffs that result from these investigations could be stacked on top of other duties.
“If they are broad enough to push tariff rates back toward 2025 levels, uncertainty will rise sharply and the hit to growth and inflation will become much harder to dismiss, especially if energy prices stay higher for longer,” Olu Sonola, head of US economics at Fitch Ratings, said in a note Thursday.
There may be political reasons for the administration to avoid another major tariff escalation before November. But if Trump’s second term has established one pattern, it’s that tariff battles can escalate — and change direction — quickly.
The-CNN-Wire
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