What Now with Tariffs?

After the federal court’s ruling against Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, and an appeals court’s temporary stay of that ruling, our analysts Michael Zezas and Michael Gapen discuss how the administration could retain the tariffs and what this means for the U.S. economy.

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Michael Zezas: Welcome to the Thoughts on the Market. I'm Michael Zezas, Morgan Stanley's Global Head of Fixed Income Research and Public Policy Strategy.

Michael Gapen: And I'm Michael Gapen, Chief U.S. Economist.

Today, the latest on President Trump's tariffs.

It's Thursday, May 29th at 5pm  in New York.

So, Mike, on Wednesday night, the U.S. Court of International Trade struck down President Trump's reciprocal tariffs. This ruling certainly seems like a fresh roadblock for the administration.

Michael Zezas: Yeah, that's right. But a quick word of caution. That doesn't mean we're supposed to conclude that the recent tariff hikes are a thing of the past. I think investors need to be aware that there's many plausible paths to keeping these tariffs exactly where they are right now.

Michael Zezas: First, while the administration is appealing this decision, the tariffs can stay in place. But even if courts ultimately rule against the Trump administration, there are other types of legal authorities that they can bring to bear to make sure that the tariff levels that are currently applied endure. So, what the court said the administration had done improperly was levy tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).

And there's been active debate all along amongst legal scholars about if this was the right law to justify those tariff levies. And so, there's always the possibility of court challenges. But what the administration could do, if the courts continue to uphold the lower court's ruling, is basically leverage other legal authorities to continue these tariffs.

They could use Section 122 as a temporary authority to levy the 10 percent tariffs that were part of this kind of global tariff, following the reciprocal trade announcement. They also could use the existing Section 301 authority that was used to create tariffs on China in 2018 and 2019, and extend that across of all China imports; and therefore, fill in the gap that would be lost by not being able to use the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to tariff some of China's imports.

So bottom line, there's lots of different legal paths to keep tariffs where they are across the set of goods that they're already applied to.

Michael Gapen: So, I think that makes a lot of sense. And with all that said, where do you think we stand right now with tariffs?

Michael Zezas: So, if the court ruling were to stand then the 10 percent tariffs on all imports that the U.S. is currently levying, that would have to go away. The 30 percent tariffs on roughly half of China imports, that would've to go away. And the 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico around fentanyl, that would have to go away as well.

What you'd be left with effectively is anything levied under section 232 or 301. So that's basically steel, aluminum, automobile tariffs. And tariffs on the roughly half of China imports that were started in 2018 and 2019. But as we said earlier, there's lots of different ways that the authority can be brought to bear to make sure that that 10 percent import tariff globally is continued as well as the incremental tariffs on China.

But Michael, turning to you on the U.S. economy, what’s your reaction to the court's ruling? It seems li