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TOI correspondent from Washington: Still miffed with the US Supreme Court striking down his liberation day tariffs, MAGA supremo Donald Trump on Monday cautioned countries not to take advantage of the situation and warned them of higher tariffs if they did so. “Any Country that wants to ‘play games’ with the ridiculous supreme court decision, especially those that have ‘Ripped Off’ the USA for years, and even decades, will be met with a much higher Tariff, and worse, than that which they just recently agreed to. BUYER BEWARE!!!” Trump said in a post, even as several countries, including India, put a hold on framework trade deals with Washington.
Trump did not name any country but an Indian delegation that was scheduled to arrive in Washington DC this week deferred its visit as New Delhi sought to assess the fallout from the SCOTUS ruling, following which the US president announced a worldwide 15 percent tariff on imports under a separate statute (Section 122) that empowers him to do so. Several countries, including India and many others in Asia/East Asia, who clinched interim trade deals with the US with tariffs ranging from 18 percent to 25 percent, will be happy with the new 15 percent announced by Trump (the maximum allowed under Section 122 for a period of 150 days), but the Trump administration has indicated that “a deal is a deal” and countries cannot renegotiate the agreement, even though India is yet to sign on the dotted line of what has been characterised as a “framework for an interim trade deal,” pending conclusion of a final bilateral agreement. Paradoxically, European nations, which concluded deals that set tariffs at 10 percent are chagrined that Trump has bumped it up to 15 percent and they are also insisting “a deal is a deal” and cannot be changed. This has put the administration in as much of a bind as the world at large amid confusion in trade and business circles. Compounding the confusion, the administration has directed the Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) to stop collecting tariffs under IEEPA (in deference to the SCOTUS ruling) starting midnight Tuesday. The new Section 122 tariff of 15 percent announced by Trump is expected to kick in immediately. In a separate post on Monday, Trump continued to rail against the SCOTUS ruling, calling it “their ridiculous, dumb, and very internationally divisive.” He claimed that while the court had ruled against his “liberation day tariffs,” it has in effect “approved all other tariffs, of which there are many, and they can all be used in a much more powerful and obnoxious way, with legal certainty, than the tariffs as initially used.” “Our incompetent supreme court did a great job for the wrong people, and for that they should be ashamed of themselves (but not the Great Three!),” Trump said, continuing to insult the six members of the apex court who voted to strike down the IEEPA tariffs by adding he will be using lower case letters for the Supreme Court “based on a complete lack of respect.”
