{"id":112883,"date":"2025-09-01T23:04:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-01T23:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/112883\/"},"modified":"2025-09-01T23:04:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-01T23:04:07","slug":"trump-administration-has-backup-plan-if-supreme-court-rules-tariffs-are-illegal-bessent-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/112883\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump administration has backup plan if Supreme Court rules tariffs are illegal, Bessent says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in Washington, on June 11. Bessent says he is confident the Supreme Court will uphold President Trump\u2019s use of tariffs.Elizabeth Frantz\/Reuters<\/p>\n

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Monday expressed confidence that the Supreme Court will uphold President Donald Trump\u2019s use of a 1977 emergency powers law to impose sweeping tariffs on most trading partners, but said the administration has a backup plan if it does not.<\/p>\n

Bessent told Reuters he was preparing a legal brief for the U.S. solicitor-general, who will oversee the government\u2019s appeal to the Supreme Court, that will underscore the urgency of addressing decades of trade imbalances and stopping the flow of deadly fentanyl into the United States.<\/p>\n

A divided U.S. appeals court ruled on Friday that most of Donald Trump\u2019s tariffs are illegal, undercutting the Republican president\u2019s use of the levies as a key economic policy tool. The court allowed the tariffs to remain in place through Oct. 14 to give the Trump administration a chance to file an appeal with the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

Federal Reserve should be independent but has made mistakes, Bessent says<\/a><\/p>\n

The 7-4 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C., addressed the legality of what Trump calls \u201creciprocal\u201d tariffs imposed as part of his trade war in April, as well as a separate set of tariffs imposed in February against China, Canada and Mexico aimed at halting imports of fentanyl.<\/p>\n

The court\u2019s decision does not affect tariffs issued under other legal authority, such as Trump\u2019s tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.<\/p>\n

Trump justified both sets of tariffs \u2013 as well as more recent levies \u2013 under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act. IEEPA gives the President the power to address \u201cunusual and extraordinary\u201d threats during national emergencies.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m confident the Supreme Court will uphold it \u2013 will uphold the president\u2019s authority to use IEEPA. And there are lots of other authorities that can be used \u2013 not as efficient, not as powerful,\u201d Bessent said. He spoke to Reuters during a visit to a diner in the Washington suburbs.<\/p>\n

One of those authorities, he added, could be Section 338 of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, which allows the President to impose tariffs of up to 50 per cent for five months against imports from countries that are found to discriminate against U.S. commerce.<\/p>\n

Bessent said the influx of deadly fentanyl, linked to some 70,000 deaths a year in the United States, was a legitimate reason to call an emergency.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf this is not a national emergency, what is?\u201d Bessent said, referring to thousands of drug overdoses linked to fentanyl. \u201cWhen can you use IEEPA if not for fentanyl?\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the brief, to be submitted Tuesday or Wednesday, would focus on the idea that U.S. trade deficits with other countries had been expanding for years and were reaching a tipping point that could lead to far greater consequences.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had these trade deficits for years, but they keep getting bigger and bigger,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are approaching a tipping point … so preventing a calamity is an emergency.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bessent noted that action by then-president George W. Bush on mortgages might have averted the global financial crisis of 2008-2009, which was triggered by excessive speculation on property values by both homeowners and financial institutions.<\/p>\n

Bessent played down the notion that Trump\u2019s tariffs were bringing countries like Russia, China and India closer together, dismissing a China-hosted gathering in Shanghai of 20 leaders from non-Western countries as \u201cperformative.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt happens every year for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s more of the same. And look, these are bad actors … India is fuelling the Russian war machine, China is fuelling the Russian war machine … I think at a point we and the allies are going to step up.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the U.S. was making headway in convincing Europe to join Washington\u2019s crackdown on India over its purchases of Russian oil through a 25 per cent additional tariff, but did not comment on whether the U.S. would use similar pressure on China.<\/p>\n

China, he said, would struggle to find sufficient markets for its goods outside the United States, Europe, and other English-speaking countries. \u201cThey don\u2019t have a high enough per capita income in these other countries,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in Washington, on June 11. Bessent says he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":112884,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,43,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,44,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,41,39,42,40,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-112883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-headlines","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-news","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}