A Court Has Struck Down Most Of Trump’s Tariffs. What Happens Next?

A federal court has dealt a setback to President Donald Trump’s campaign of imposing tariffs on trading partners, but the trade wars are far from over, administration officials and trade experts said Thursday.

On Wednesday night, the U.S. Court of International Trade struck down much of Trump’s tariffs on foreign trade. The court gave the Trump administration 10 days to stop collecting the tariffs. In the meantime, the administration has appealed the ruling, hoping to have it overturned.

The judges’ ruling was a roadblock to Trump’s trade agenda, but it doesn’t stop it completely. The order leaves in place several major tariffs on specific products, including cars and metal. And according to White House officials and outside experts, the administration has multiple options to impose more tariffs through other legal avenues.

“The court, interestingly enough, basically said we were right, just use different rules and laws,” said Peter Navarro, Trump’s top trade advisor, on Bloomberg Television Thursday. “So nothing has really changed here.”

Trump Has Other Options To Impose Tariffs

Kevin Hassett, chair of the National Economic Council, said the administration was confident the court’s ruling would be overturned on appeal, and that it was not yet planning to impose tariffs by other legal avenues.

“There are three or four other ways we have to do it,” he said Thursday in an interview on Fox News. “We’re not planning to pursue those right now because we are very very confident that this ruling is incorrect.”

Experts at Goldman Sachs identified at least three other ways Trump could impose tariffs outside of the Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 that Trump used for the “Liberation Day” levies. Those include a law that allows tariffs of up to 15% for up to 150 days; a 1930 law that has never been tried; and an authority that would allow tariffs after an investigation of unfair trade practices by foreign countries, which could take weeks or months.

Ruling May Not Stop Tariffs, But Introduces More Uncertainty

In the meantime, the court ruling deepens the uncertainty surrounding U.S. trade policy and could affect the administration’s negotiations with foreign countries.

The administration says numerous countries are currently in talks with the White House to avoid higher “Liberation Day” tariffs ahead of July, when a 90-day pause on some of the tariffs expires.

“The Trump administration still has other mechanisms through which it can impose tariffs, but these have limits on the amount that can be imposed, or entail processes which can take months or years,” Susan Stone, a professor of economics at the University of South Australia, wrote in a commentary on The Conversation Thursday. “This undermines Trump’s preferred method of negotiation: throwing out large threats and backing down once a concession is reached.”

Tracy Shuchart, a senior economist at NinjaTrader, said the ruling will likely have little impact on negotiations. However, it will be hard to judge the outcome of the trade wars until countries start signing detailed agreements, he said.

“Ultimately, countries do want to make some sort of deal with the U.S.,” Shuchart said.

Update, May 29, 2025: This article has been updated to include comments from Tracy Shuchart and information about the appeal.