Trump raises new global tariff to 15% from 10% following tariff ruling

U.S. President Donald Trump addresses a press conference about the Supreme Court's striking down of most of his tariffs in the briefing room at the White House in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 20 2026. Earlier today, the Supreme Court ruled against President Trump's tariff program. [EPA/YONHAP]

 
U.S. President Donald Trump said Saturday that he is raising a new global tariff to 15 percent from 10 percent, as he repeated his criticism of this week's Supreme Court ruling against his administration's sweeping emergency duties.
 
Trump made the announcement in a social media post, a day after the high court upheld a lower court's ruling against his use of the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to justify duties, including the "reciprocal" tariffs on South Korea and other trading partners.
 

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"Please let this statement serve to represent that I, as President of the United States of America, will be, effective immediately, raising the 10 percent 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 percent level," he wrote on Truth Social.
 
The decision was based on a review of the court ruling, which he lambasted as a "ridiculous, poorly written and extraordinarily anti-American" decision, quoting his words. He also emphasized that during the next "short" number of months, his administration will determine and issue "new and legally permissible" tariffs, which he said "will continue our extraordinarily successful process of Making America Great Again."
 
The news comes only a day after Trump, hours after the Supreme Court ruling on Friday, signed a proclamation to impose a temporary 10 percent global tariff under Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act, which the White House said would take effect at 12:01 a.m. on Tuesday. Under Section 122, the president can impose import surcharges of up to 15 percent, as well as other measures such as import quotas to address serious external trade and financial imbalances. Those measures can initially last for up to five months.
 
During a press conference earlier in the day, Trump unveiled the plan for the new tariff, stressing that his administration has “even stronger measures” than the IEEPA.
 

U.S. President Donald Trump addresses a press conference about the Supreme Court's striking down of most of his tariffs in the briefing room at the White House in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 20 2026. Earlier today, the Supreme Court ruled against President Trump's tariff program. [EPA/YONHAP]

 
“During that period of five months, we are doing the various investigations necessary to put fair tariffs or tariffs [...] on other countries,” Trump said. “So we are doing that period, but we're immediately instituting the 10 percent provision, which we are allowed to do."
 
U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Jamieson Greer also announced a plan to initiate investigations under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act — a law that allows the USTR to impose tariffs or other import curbs, among other measures, to remedy a foreign trade practice. The Section 301 investigations are expected to cover "most major trading partners" and address areas of concern, such as industrial excess capacity, forced labor, pharmaceutical pricing practices, discrimination against U.S. technology companies and digital goods and services, to name a few, according to Greer.
 
The Trump administration has imposed reciprocal tariffs of 15 percent on Korean products, down from 25 percent following a bilateral deal under which Seoul committed to investing $350 billion in the U.S., among other pledges, in return for the tariff reduction.

BY YOON SO-YEON, YONHAP [yoon.soyeon@joongang.co.kr]