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Tag: Tariffs

  • Trump promises to send $2,000 tariff dividend checks ‘probably the middle of next year, a little bit later than that’ | Fortune

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    President Donald Trump promised on Monday that his administration will begin issuing $2,000 “tariff dividend” checks to Americans around the middle of 2026, the most specific timetable he has offered yet on a proposal that can’t seem to find a home within a campaign-esque promise, economic argument and political provocation.

    “We’re going to be issuing dividends later on, somewhere prior to … probably the middle of next year, a little bit later than that,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, according to Axios. The payments, he said, would go to “individuals of moderate income, middle income.”

    The commitment marks an escalation from Trump’s earlier, vaguer assertions that tariffs are generating enough money to fund direct payments to American households. But turning the idea into actual checks is far more complicated than his easy-going rhetoric suggests.

    Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent made that clear over the weekend, saying on Fox News that the administration “needs legislation” to distribute any such dividend. 

    “We will see,” he added. Bessent also implied that the structure could take forms other than a check — for instance, a tax rebate — signaling uncertainty inside the administration about what Trump’s proposal even is.

    The math is another obstacle. A $2,000-per-person dividend, even if limited to Americans with low or middle incomes, would cost well over the $200 billion that Trump’s tariffs have brought in. If the checks resembled the COVID-era stimulus structure — which went to adults and children alike— the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates the price tag could reach $600 billion. That would mean that Trump’s tariffs would be a net $400 billion negative for the U.S. in 2026, based on current projections. 

    And the future of that revenue is itself uncertain. The Supreme Court is expected to rule within months on whether Trump exceeded his authority when he imposed sweeping tariffs by invoking national emergency powers. So far, both conservative and liberal supreme court justices have seemed skeptical of his arguments. If the Court rules against him, the administration may have to somehow refund billions in collected duties to importers, which would be the opposite of Trump’s promised “dividend.” Trump argues the stakes are existential, claiming a loss could cost the U.S. $3 trillion in refunds and lost investment.

    The White House did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment.

    Still, Trump continues to present tariffs as an all-purpose economic engine: a way to protect U.S. factories, pressure foreign governments, strengthen the federal budget, and now, finance what he has described as a populist windfall. Trump and the Republican party broadly have been focused on winning voters’ favor back on “affordability” ever since Democrats’ swept elections earlier this month. The President even said on Friday that he would roll back tariffs on beef, coffee, tropical fruits and commodities, even as he continues to insist that tariffs don’t raise prices. 

    “Affordability is a lie when used by the Dems. It is a complete CON JOB,” he wrote Friday on Truth Social. 

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    Eva Roytburg

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  • OR Christmas Trees Benefit From Import Tariffs, Suffer With Exports – KXL

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    A truck drives Christmas trees harvested from Trout Creek Tree Farm in Corbett. Photo courtesy of Trout Creek Tree Farm.

    Corbett, Ore. – Around five-million Oregon Christmas trees will be harvested this season, with shipments already en route to destinations across the globe. Oregon Christmas Tree Growers Association President Tom Norby says President Trump’s tariffs are both good and bad for business. “Certainly, the most positive thing about it is the importation of artificial Christmas trees, those now having a tariff associated with them.” Norby, who also owns Trout Creek Tree Farm in Corbett, says, “I am hearing that they’re quite a bit more expensive and they’re probably going to be a little bit [in] short supply.”

    Around 84% of fake trees come from China and are subject to the import tax. “I personally wish the President would put a 200% tariff on artificial Christmas trees,” Norby tells KXL News.

    But Norby says, reciprocal tariffs have had a cooling effect on international sales of our trees. “Oregon Christmas tree growers also export a lot of trees overseas. So this year, that was down quite a bit.” He adds, “There was a number of buyers from overseas that did not come to look at trees this year, and did not place orders this year because they were too expensive, even though the freight getting over to China, Taiwan and Singapore was a lot less than last year.”

    Norby says around 90% of Oregon Christmas trees are sold domestically, though, where wholesale prices remain in line with last year, “Prices generally, at the wholesale level, are pretty stable. So hopefully that translates over to the retail level, and the retailers aren’t increasing the prices too much. Although, everything goes up.”

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    Heather Roberts

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  • Thailand Says US Suspending Talks on Trade Framework Over Cambodia Truce Dispute

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    BANGKOK (Reuters) -Thailand said on Saturday the United States had told Bangkok that it was suspending talks on finalising a reciprocal trade deal until the Thai government reaffirms its commitment to a ceasefire with Cambodia.

    Thailand had said earlier that the U.S.-brokered ceasefire deal to end border clashes with Cambodia could not be carried out because of alleged breaches by Phnom Penh.

    A letter from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative announcing the suspension of talks to conclude details of the trade deal was received on Friday night, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nikorndej Balankura told reporters.

    He quoted the USTR letter as saying trade negotiations could resume once Thailand reaffirmed its commitment to carrying out the joint ceasefire declaration with Cambodia.

    The two sides must negotiate and finalise details of the trade deal and prepare it for signature before it takes effect.

    Last month, Washington and Bangkok announced a framework for reciprocal trade that would see the U.S. maintain a 19% tariff on Thai products while identifying products where tariffs could potentially be adjusted or cut to zero.

    Separately, U.S. President Donald Trump spoke with the leaders of Thailand and Cambodia on Friday night, after border tensions re-escalated this week, and said he thought they were “going to be fine”.

    He made no mention of the reported USTR letter saying trade talks were suspended. There was also no mention of it on the USTR or White House websites, where news on trade talks with other countries was posted.

    Thailand this week suspended the ceasefire deal and demanded an apology over allegations that Cambodia had laid fresh landmines that injured Thai soldiers, which Cambodia denies.

    Ministry spokesperson Nikorndej said Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul explained the matter to Trump on their call, “who expressed understanding regarding the issue”.

    In a Facebook post after the call, Anutin said he had asked Trump for a cut in the 19% tariff on Thai goods. He said Trump replied that it was already a low rate but he would consider the request if the removal of landmines along the border with Cambodia was completed quickly.

    (Reporting by Orathai Sriring; editing by Mark Heinrich)

    Copyright 2025 Thomson Reuters.

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    Reuters

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  • Trump cuts tariffs on beef, coffee, bananas and other food imports

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    President Trump exempted foods like beef, coffee and bananas from his sweeping country-by-country tariffs on Friday, as his administration grapples with cost-of-living frustrations and quickly rising prices for some types of food. 

    The new exemption covers a range of tropical products that are often imported to the United States, including coffee, tea, bananas, mangoes, avocados, coconuts, pineapples, cocoa and spices such as nutmeg, according to an executive order. It also covers beef, oranges and tomatoes.

    The White House said Mr. Trump decided to exempt the products on Friday because he’s made “substantial progress” in negotiating trade deals with other countries. A day earlier, Mr. Trump announced trade frameworks with four Latin American countries — Argentina, Guatemala, El Salvador and Ecuador — that included relief for food that isn’t widely produced in the U.S.

    The food products will no longer be covered by the “reciprocal” tariffs that Mr. Trump has imposed on most U.S. trading partners, which range from 10% to 40% or more. Some types of food could still be impacted by other forms of tariffs.

    Mr. Trump told reporters Friday the tariff exemptions should cause prices to go down, and they mostly applied to food that is “not competitive in this country,” like bananas.

    “We don’t make them in this country, so there’s no protection of our industries or our food products,” he said aboard Air Force One.

    The moves come as polls show that voters remain nervous about inflation and wary of Mr. Trump’s approach to the issue, which helped propel him back to the White House last year. 

    Food prices rose 3.1% in the yearlong period ending in September, well below its peak of 11.4% in 2022, according to federal data. But certain types of food have surged: Beef prices were up 12.9% year-over-year in September, banana prices were up 6.9% and roasted coffee 18.9%.

    Mr. Trump has insisted costs are actually down since he took over from former President Joe Biden, and has long denied that higher tariffs could push up consumer prices — a persistent fear raised by economists. 

    But rising beef prices have alarmed Mr. Trump, who accused foreign-owned meat packing companies earlier this month of “driving up the price of Beef through Illicit Collusion, Price Fixing, and Price Manipulation.”

    Last month, Mr. Trump said he’s considering importing more beef from Argentina to help get prices down. It’s a delicate issue, though, because boosting beef imports could upset U.S.-based ranchers, who are typically supportive of the president. Trade groups like the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association publicly criticized the idea.

    Mr. Trump responded on Truth Social that ranchers “have to get their prices down.”

    “The Cattle Ranchers, who I love, don’t understand that the only reason they are doing so well, for the first time in decades, is because I put Tariffs on cattle coming into the United States,” he wrote. “If it weren’t for me, they would be doing just as they’ve done for the past 20 years — Terrible!”

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  • Trump lowers tariffs on coffee, beef and fruits, as Americans’ concerns about affordability grow

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    (CNN) — President Donald Trump on Friday signed an executive order that retroactively lowers tariffs on beef, tomatoes, coffee and bananas, among other agricultural imports, backdated to Thursday.

    The order Trump signed excludes the goods from “reciprocal” tariff rates, which start at 10% and go as high as 50%. However, the order doesn’t exempt the goods entirely from tariffs.

    For instance, tomatoes from Mexico, a major supplier to the United States, will continue to be tariffed at 17%. That rate took effect in July after a nearly three-decade-old trade agreement expired. Tomato prices increased almost immediately after those tariffs were put in place.

    Many of the commodities that will no longer face “reciprocal” tariffs have seen some of the biggest price increases since Trump took office, in part because of tariffs he imposed and a lack of sufficient domestic supply.

    For instance, Brazil, the top supplier of coffee to the US, has faced tariffs of 50% since August. Consumers paid nearly 20% more for coffee in September compared to the prior year, according to Consumer Price Index data.

    The move comes after voters expressed frustrations with the state of the economy in exit polls earlier this month, voting for Democrats in off-year elections in several states.

    In previewing Friday’s executive order, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said earlier this week the moves targeted goods “we don’t grow here in the United States,” referring to coffee and bananas. (While coffee is grown in some parts of the country, it’s mostly imported.)

    Earlier on Friday the Trump administration and the Swiss government announced a new trade framework that calls for lowering tariffs on goods from Switzerland to 15% from 39%, a rate that was among the highest across all countries the US trades with.

    This story has been updated with additional context and developments.

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    Elisabeth Buchwald and CNN

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  • Trump To Ease Tariffs On Four Latin American Nations – KXL

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    The Trump administration expects the price of coffee, beef, and fruit to drop with plans to ease tariffs on four Latin American nations.

    WASHINGTON, DC – The White House expects the price of coffee, beef, and fruit to drop with plans to ease tariffs on four Latin American nations. On Thursday the White House announced it had agreed to frameworks for trade deals with Argentina, Guatemala, Ecuador and El Salvador.

    The deals will remove tariffs on certain foods and other products not produced in the U.S. in large enough numbers. This comes a day after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that Americans will see “substantial announcements over the next couple days” regarding affordability.

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    Tim Lantz

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  • Capitol Hill, White House focus on affordability with new policy initiatives

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    From Capitol Hill to here at the White House, lawmakers are zeroing in on affordability. You could see it from the administration here in the last week, from videos to messages and new policy rollouts all designed and aimed at lowering costs for Americans. From 50 year mortgages to $2000 tariff checks, the White House is proposing bold solutions to *** stubborn issue. We’re working overtime on reducing costs. Among the changes, the White House. new trade frameworks with Latin American countries to lower the cost of groceries among other items. September’s inflation data shows coffee, bananas, and beef are among the items up significantly over the past year. We understand that people understand as they look at their pocketbooks that go to the grocery store, that there’s still work to do. It comes as the economy absorbs the damage from the 43 day government shutdown, which the White House says wiped out about $90 billion in economic growth and about 60,000 non-fe. Workers their jobs. Meanwhile on Capitol Hill, many lawmakers tell us affordability is also their priority moving forward. Our constituents are absolutely suffering under the crushing costs of health care cost increases, housing increases, childcare, groceries, gas, you name it. I’m going to be focusing my attention on housing affordability, and for Democrats, the fight that drove the shutdown isn’t over. They’re now racing to restore health care subsidies set to expire at the end of the year. *** lapse that could leave families paying hundreds more each month. We’re working towards bringing another bill to the floor that would actually solve the crisis of affordability in healthcare and bring down healthcare premiums for those 24 million Americans. Senate Republicans have promised *** vote to extend those healthcare subsidies in December, not guaranteeing what that vote outcome would be. However, House Republicans have not promised such *** vote at the White House. I’m Christopher Salas.

    The federal government has reopened after the longest shutdown in U.S. history, and the focus is now shifting to affordability, a pressing issue for millions of Americans. From Capitol Hill to the White House, lawmakers are concentrating on reducing costs.The White House is proposing bold solutions to address affordability, including 50-year mortgages and $2,000 tariff checks. Kevin Hassett, National Economic Council director, said, “We’re working overtime on reducing costs.”Among the changes, the White House announced new trade frameworks with Latin American countries to lower grocery costs. September’s inflation data shows significant price increases for coffee, bananas, and beef over the past year. President Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday to eliminate tariffs on a broad swath of commodities, including beef, coffee and tropical fruits.Hassett acknowledged the ongoing challenges, saying, “We understand that people understand as they look at their pocketbooks and go to the grocery store that there’s still work to do.”The economy is absorbing the impact of the 43-day shutdown, which the White House said wiped out $90 billion in growth and cost about 60,000 non-federal workers their jobs. On Capitol Hill, many lawmakers emphasize affordability as their priority moving forward. Rep. Johnny Olszewski, a Democrat from Maryland, said, “Our constituents are absolutely suffering under the crushing costs of healthcare and cost increases, housing increases, childcare, groceries, gas, you name it.” Rep. Mike Flood, a Republican from Nebraska, added, “I’m going to be focusing my attention on housing affordability.”For Democrats, the fight that led to the shutdown continues as they race to restore healthcare subsidies set to expire at the end of the year, which could result in families paying hundreds more each month. Rep. Josh Harder, a Democrat from California, said, “We’re working towards bringing another bill to the floor that would actually solve the crisis of affordability in health care and bring down health care premiums for those 24 million Americans.”Senate Republicans have promised a vote to extend healthcare subsidies by December, but the House has not made such a promise. Meanwhile, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced that the Trump administration will require SNAP participants to reapply for benefits. A USDA spokesperson stated that the Secretary aims to address “fraud, waste and incessant abuse” in the SNAP program, noting that earlier fraud rates were only assumptions. The USDA plans to use existing recertification processes, review state data, and potentially introduce new regulations as part of this effort. However, the USDA has not specified when a broad reapplication would start, how it would work, or whether families could lose benefits during the process. Further details have been requested.See the latest news from the Washington News Bureau:

    WASHINGTON —

    The federal government has reopened after the longest shutdown in U.S. history, and the focus is now shifting to affordability, a pressing issue for millions of Americans. From Capitol Hill to the White House, lawmakers are concentrating on reducing costs.

    The White House is proposing bold solutions to address affordability, including 50-year mortgages and $2,000 tariff checks. Kevin Hassett, National Economic Council director, said, “We’re working overtime on reducing costs.”

    Among the changes, the White House announced new trade frameworks with Latin American countries to lower grocery costs. September’s inflation data shows significant price increases for coffee, bananas, and beef over the past year.

    President Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday to eliminate tariffs on a broad swath of commodities, including beef, coffee and tropical fruits.

    Hassett acknowledged the ongoing challenges, saying, “We understand that people understand as they look at their pocketbooks and go to the grocery store that there’s still work to do.”

    The economy is absorbing the impact of the 43-day shutdown, which the White House said wiped out $90 billion in growth and cost about 60,000 non-federal workers their jobs.

    On Capitol Hill, many lawmakers emphasize affordability as their priority moving forward. Rep. Johnny Olszewski, a Democrat from Maryland, said, “Our constituents are absolutely suffering under the crushing costs of healthcare and cost increases, housing increases, childcare, groceries, gas, you name it.”

    Rep. Mike Flood, a Republican from Nebraska, added, “I’m going to be focusing my attention on housing affordability.”

    For Democrats, the fight that led to the shutdown continues as they race to restore healthcare subsidies set to expire at the end of the year, which could result in families paying hundreds more each month.

    Rep. Josh Harder, a Democrat from California, said, “We’re working towards bringing another bill to the floor that would actually solve the crisis of affordability in health care and bring down health care premiums for those 24 million Americans.”

    Senate Republicans have promised a vote to extend healthcare subsidies by December, but the House has not made such a promise.

    Meanwhile, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced that the Trump administration will require SNAP participants to reapply for benefits. A USDA spokesperson stated that the Secretary aims to address “fraud, waste and incessant abuse” in the SNAP program, noting that earlier fraud rates were only assumptions. The USDA plans to use existing recertification processes, review state data, and potentially introduce new regulations as part of this effort. However, the USDA has not specified when a broad reapplication would start, how it would work, or whether families could lose benefits during the process. Further details have been requested.

    See the latest news from the Washington News Bureau:

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  • No, tariff revenues haven’t slashed US deficit by 25%

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    As President Donald Trump faced questions about the economic impact of his trade policy, a White House social media post framed tariffs as essential for tackling federal deficits.

    A Nov. 12 X Post from the White House included Trump’s Nov. 5 remarks to a business forum when he touted his administration’s efforts to reduce government and target “waste, fraud and abuse.” He said the economy has been creating jobs in the private sector rather than in the government.

    “My tariffs are bringing in hundreds of billions of dollars, and are helping to slash the deficit this year by more than 25%,” the X post quoted Trump as saying.

    The post received a community note — a crowdsourced fact-check — citing Treasury Department figures and data from the Congressional Budget Office, Congress’ nonpartisan number-crunching arm. 

    We found that Trump exaggerated the deficit’s decline on his watch by a factor of 10.

    “The deficit has not been meaningfully cut, much less slashed by 25%,” said Steve Ellis, president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washington, D.C.-based group that tracks budget policy. 

    The White House did not provide evidence to support the statement.

    The federal deficit fell by 2.3% from fiscal year 2024 to 2025 

    When the federal government’s 2025 fiscal year ended Sept. 30, the Congressional Budget Office posted a final calculation of the deficit for the 2025 fiscal year, which started Oct. 1, 2024.

    The CBO reported a federal deficit of $1.775 trillion in fiscal year 2025. That represented a 2.3% decrease from the 2024 fiscal year deficit, which was $1.817 trillion. 

    The CBO also calculated the deficit as a share of gross domestic product. That fell from 6.3% in fiscal 2024 to 5.9% in fiscal 2025, a 0.4 percentage point drop. That was well short of a 25% drop, as well.

    Trump served for all or part of nine months of the 2025 fiscal year, from January to September. If considering only the portions of the 2025 fiscal year when Trump was president, and comparing them with the same months in 2024 when President Joe Biden was in office, the deficit increased on Trump’s watch.  

    From January to September 2024, when Biden was president, the deficit was $1.064 trillion. From January to September 2025, when Trump was president, the deficit was $1.079 trillion, a 1.4% increase.

    From January to October 2025, the federal government collected $309.2 billion in tariff revenue, compared with $165.4 billion through the same point in 2024, an increase of $143.8 billion.

    The White House has offered divergent plans for increased tariff revenue. Trump proposed on social media that Americans receive $2,000 tariff revenue dividends. If the administration pursues the dividend check idea — which would face a range of obstacles — that plan would eliminate much or all of the tariffs’ potential deficit-reducing impact.

    Ellis said the tariff dividends likely would increase the federal deficit. 

    The Supreme Court is also weighing a challenge to Trump’s ability to impose tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a law he’s used aggressively in his second term. If the justices rule that he can’t use that law to impose tariffs, much of the tariff revenue could disappear.

    Our ruling

    Trump said his tariffs “are helping to slash the deficit this year by more than 25%.”

    The federal deficit has not fallen by 25% during Trump’s second term. The fiscal year 2025 deficit was 2.3% smaller than the fiscal 2024 deficit. When considering only the portions of the fiscal 2025 year when Trump was president, the deficit was higher on his watch than during the comparable months in 2024 under Biden.

    Trump has proposed using tariff revenue to fund dividends for the American public, which would eliminate any deficit-reducing impact the tariffs could have.

    We rate the statement False.

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  • Trump Really Wants to Mail Out $2K Checks With His Signature

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    More money for you! Signed, DJT.
    Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

    During the COVID-19 pandemic, the one policy Donald Trump consistently favored was the mailing of “stimulus checks” (technically, economic-impact payments) to individual taxpayers, bearing his signature, as though this federal-government largesse was a gift from the president himself. Indeed, he pitched a temper tantrum not long before his first term ended because the stimulus checks Congress authorized him to send out were $600, while he much preferred $2,000. Such direct payments to the whole country were later, of course, denounced by many conservatives as inflationary, mostly when they were continued by a Democratic president and Congress in 2021 (Joe Biden, by the way, didn’t sign those checks, though he later joked that maybe he should have).

    Trump’s desire for a $2,000 check he could take credit for survived his four years out of power. Early this year, he embraced an incredibly half-baked idea to give taxpayers a $5,000 “DOGE Dividend,” to reflect the vast savings that Elon Musk was then claiming he was going to generate from chainsawing federal agencies. Unfortunately, DOGE wasn’t saving much of anything at all, so people waiting for their $5,000 checks were disappointed.

    The 47th president didn’t give up, though; he keeps looking for a big, fat cookie jar full of money he can gift to the great unwashed, particularly now that they are so stubbornly finding life in the economic paradise of Trump 2.0 less than affordable. His latest big idea is a “tariff dividend,” as broadcast by a Truth Social post on November 9, shortly after affordability-obsessed voters gave his party a spanking:

    We are taking in Trillions of Dollars and will soon begin paying down our ENORMOUS DEBT, $37 Trillion. Record Investment in the USA, plants and factories going up all over the place. A dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone

    Much like the DOGE Dividend idea, the tariff dividend lollipop has some math problems, as was pointed out by those spoilsports at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget:

    Assuming these dividends are designed like the COVID-era Economic Impact Payments, which went to both adults and children, we estimate each round of payments would cost about $600 billion. In comparison, President Trump’s new tariffs currently in effect have raised approximately $100 billion thus far and — including those tariffs that have been ruled illegal pending a Supreme Court appeal — are projected to raise about $300 billion per year.

    That’s a good point about Trump counting — or in this case, vastly overcounting — his chickens before they hatch, given widespread expectations of an adverse judicial decision on the authority he cited for his tariffs. There are also reports that the administration plans to pursue major exemptions from the tariffs of food and other essentials in the very near term. On top of all that, the circular nature of this massive transfer of dollars is hard to ignore. If the dividends are supposed to offset the cost to consumers of tariffs (Trump doesn’t admit that exists, but anyone with basic economics credentials does), why not refrain from imposing those tariffs in the first place? It’s just a vast money-go-round.

    The odds are vanishingly low that the “tariff dividends” are happening, of course. They would require congressional approval, including 60 votes in the Senate, and Democrats aren’t going to help Trump out of his self-imposed affordability problems. There’s also a chance that the administration is just going to rebrand tax proposals it has already made, some of which have already been enacted, hints Treasury secretary Scott Bessent:

    “I haven’t spoken to the president about this yet, but the $2,000 dividend could come in lots of forms,” adding, “It could be just the tax decreases that we are seeing on the president’s agenda. You know, no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security, deductibility of auto loans.”

    So the president’s dreams of cash-on-the-barrel vote buying may have to be watered down and pushed into the future a bit. It’s very clear he won’t give up on the best of all economic messages: Here’s more money for you, courtesy of Donald J. Trump. Thank you for your attention to this matter!


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    Ed Kilgore

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  • South Korea, U.S. Agree on Trade, Security Deal, Nuclear Subs, Lee Says

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    SEOUL (Reuters) -South Korean President Lee Jae Myung said on Friday South Korea and U.S. had finalised a joint fact sheet on agreements on trade and security issues after his summit with U.S. President Donald Trump last month.

    South Korea will be building nuclear-powered submarines and will be forming a new partnership with the U.S. on shipbuilding, artificial intelligence and the nuclear industry, Lee told a televised briefing.

    Lee met Trump in South Korea’s Gyeongju last month and agreed to a deal that will cut U.S. import duties on South Korean products to 15% from the earlier 25%.

    (Reporting by Jack KimEditing by Ed Davies)

    Copyright 2025 Thomson Reuters.

    Photos You Should See – Oct. 2025

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    Reuters

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  • Trump administration announces trade frameworks with Argentina, Guatemala, El Salvador and Ecuador

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    Washington — The Trump administration has reached frameworks for reciprocal trade agreements with Argentina, Guatemala, El Salvador and Ecuador, the White House announced Thursday, although details of the frameworks are still emerging. 

    The tariff rate for most goods from Guatemala, El Salvador and Argentina will continue to be 10%, while Ecuador will remain at 15%, senior administration officials told reporters on a briefing call. But there will be tariff relief on a number of items, particularly those that can’t be grown in the U.S. Senior administration officials didn’t list those items, nor do the joint statements about the frameworks released by the White House, but one senior administration official anticipated that coffee and bananas from Ecuador, for instance, would see tariff relief. 

    “The United States commits to remove its reciprocal tariffs on certain qualifying exports from Ecuador that cannot be grown, mined, or naturally produced in the United States in sufficient quantities,” the framework joint statement for Ecuador released by the White House says.   

    Senior administration officials couldn’t provide details on how the trade agreements would affect the cost of goods like coffee, cocoa or bananas, which the U.S. imports from Central and South American nations, although one senior administration official said it would likely have “positive” effects. 

    Those specific commodities are important because “we don’t make those in the United States,” the official said. 

    “Our expectation is that there will be some positive effects for prices for things like coffee, cocoa, bananas,” the official said. 

    The White House said the administration will work to finalize the agreements in the coming weeks. 

    Senior administration officials said the agreement frameworks are largely focused on allowing those foreign markets to accept more U.S. goods. Generally, the agreements also aim to open up markets to import U.S. agricultural products and to prohibit imposing digital services taxes on U.S. companies. 

    The U.S. has reached trade deals of some nature with the European Union, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, South Korea and the United Kingdom, among other countries.

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  • How Tariffs Are Making Workplaces More Dangerous

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    Recent data on consumer spending ahead of the holiday season suggests that price increases from import tariffs may already be reducing shoppers’ purchases. But another, less obvious effect of duties may also make it less safe to go to work. According to a new report from a trade association representing construction, manufacturing, energy agriculture, medical, and other companies, many member businesses are delaying procurement of workplace safety materials made abroad. That adjustment to higher costs risks creating a downstream effect of potentially rising accidents on the job.

    The International Safety Equipment Association (ISEA) says many businesses that rely on personal protective equipment (PPE) as a workplace safeguards are buying less of it. Imported first-aid kits, respiratory protectors, high-visibility clothing, and even steel-toed work boots are among the many items that now cost more, according to ISEA. A survey of association members blamed the purchasing cuts on those higher outlays since import tariffs were imposed. The move not only increases the risk of injury for the 125 million employees who use those materials to ensure their protection on the job. It also exposes their employers to greater threats of accidents that already cost U.S. businesses $176.5 billion each year.

    According to “The Hidden Costs of PPE Tariffs “report, the ISEA says import levies are forcing many businesses whose employees face higher risk of workplace mishaps to make a very hard choice. Either they pay the increased costs of protective equipment that duties have created immediately, or scale purchasing plans back in the hopes customs taxes will be lowered over time — or perhaps be overturned by a looming Supreme Court ruling.

    In most cases, business owners have decided to bide their time.

    Nearly 60 percent of companies surveyed said they’d delayed planned purchases of safety materials, “in many cases using PPE far beyond its useful lifespan.” Another 41 percent of participating businesses said they’d sought to offset the higher costs tariffs have generated by switching to cheaper made, often less effective protection equipment.

    The reason? Fully 93 percent of respondents reported their costs for safety materials have risen since import duties were announced in April. By contrast, the study didn’t establish a figure for the average increase of PPE prices under tariffs, or even offer an ballpark percentage of those hikes.

    However, it did find 90 percent respondents believe that companies cutting procurement of costlier PPE materials “will have a negative impact on the safety” of workers. But faced with choice of paying more now or waiting to see if tariffs decrease, many employers have decided to take a calculated risk.

    “Workplaces will cut corners to accommodate the extra costs,” said one unidentified ISEA member cited in the report. “They’ll use PPE too long, buy inferior and less protective PPE, and not use PPE when they should. We haven’t yet seen the full consequences.”

    The report projected how the resulting increase in workplace risks might play out.

    It warned that if “worker injuries increase by just a single percentage point, over 40,000 workers will be injured on the job, costing the American economy $1.8 billion.” That’s on top of the $176.5 billion accidents already cost companies each year. ISEA CEO Cam Mackey called that a tragic waste in more ways than one.

    “When tariffs make it harder to afford quality protective gear that keeps workers safe, everyone pays the price,” Mackey said in comments about the report’s release this week. “This isn’t about politics. It’s about protecting the people who make America run — the workers building the infrastructure that keeps our cities moving, manufacturing the machinery that defends our nation, powering the energy systems that drive our economy, and caring for our families. Ensuring their safety should be a national priority.”

    Injuries aren’t the only way higher PPE costs are affecting business owners and employees. The survey found 44 percent of participating companies — which collectively contribute $15 trillion in annual GDP growth — have already delayed hiring plans in reaction to rising costs, including those of safety materials. Another 33 percent of respondents said they’re considering doing likewise.

    Release of the report is part of the ISEA’s continued drive to convince the Trump administration and members of Congress to exempt PPE and other safety materials from import tariffs. Doing that, it argues, would prioritize the protections of U.S. workers exposed to workplace risk by sparing their employers the cost of trade war duties.

    “Businesses don’t want to cut corners on safety,” said Mackey. “But when costs rise and budgets tighten, difficult choices follow. We’re asking policymakers to help prevent that situation before it starts.”

    The early-rate deadline for the 2026 Inc. Regionals Awards is Friday, November 14, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Apply now.

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  • Donald Trump stimulus check update: White House “committed” on $2K payments

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    President Donald Trump is “committed” to sending Americans $2,000 dividend checks, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.

    Speaking to reporters at the White House on Wednesday, Leavitt said officials are exploring ways to implement a plan to distribute money from tariff revenue. She did not provide further details about the plan.

    A White House official told Newsweek: “President Trump’s tariffs are resetting global commerce, securing manufacturing investments, and safeguarding our national and economic security – and they’re also raising billions in revenue for the federal government. The Administration is committed to putting this money to good use for the American people. Given we have not yet revealed any specifics here, back-of-the-envelope analyses about the dividends are baseless speculation.”

    Why It Matters

    Trump has faced a backlash over his handling of the economy since his return to the White House, and inflation and economic uncertainty are rife. Stimulus checks could prove particularly popular among lower-income voters, but some policy experts have raised concerns about the feasibility of the proposal.

    What To Know

    Leavitt told reporters: “The president made it clear he wants to make it happen. So his team of economic advisers are looking into it.”

    It comes after Trump posted on Truth Social about the plan, saying: “We’re going to issue a dividend to our middle-income people and lower-income people—about $2,000.”

    He also spoke about it at the Oval Office on Monday and said it would apply to “middle-income people and lower-income people,” though he did not specify what that income threshold would be.

    On Sunday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent appeared to express doubts about the plan when he told ABC News’ This Week that a tariff dividend could come “in lots of forms” and that Trump could have been referring to tax savings from his One Big Beautiful Bill legislation.

    “It could be just the tax decreases that we are seeing on the president’s agenda. No tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security, deductibility on auto loans. Those are substantial deductions that are being financed in the tax bill,” Bessent said.

    An analysis by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) estimated the cost of such rebate checks at $600 billion annually, which is double the total annual revenue projected from new tariffs in 2025. The CRFB warned that this could add $6 trillion to the national deficit over a decade if continued annually.

    According to the Treasury Department’s latest monthly statement, the U.S. has raised around $195 billion in customs duties in Fiscal Year 2025.

    “Like so many Trump statements, the promise of $2,000 tariff rebate checks was so broadly phrased as to be hard to assess,” Calvin Jillson, a politics professor at Southern Methodist University, told Newsweek. “He certainly could not have meant a $2,000 check to every American, even every American adult or every taxpayer, as these would cost several times what the tariffs have brought in. Expect a much scaled-down version of the initial broad promise.”

    What People Are Saying

    President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social: “People that are against Tariffs are FOOLS! We are now the Richest, Most Respected Country In the World, With Almost No Inflation, and A Record Stock Market Price. 401k’s are Highest EVER,” the president wrote. “A dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone.”

    Erica York, vice president of federal tax policy at the Tax Foundation, wrote on X: “The President just proposed a $2,000 tariff ‘dividend’ for each person, excluding high-income earners. If the cutoff is $100,000, 150M adults would qualify, for a cost near $300 billion. If kids qualify, that grows. Only problem, new tariffs have raised $120 billion so far.”

    What Happens Next

    For the plan to proceed, it would need to be approved by Congress. Meanwhile, the legality of Trump’s tariff policies will be decided by the Supreme Court. If they rule against the tariffs, this would further undermine Trump’s ability to issue stimulus checks.

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  • Trump proposes $2,000 dividend funded by tariffs. Here’s what experts say about the plan.

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    President Donald Trump on Sunday said he wants to give most Americans a $2,000 payment funded from tariffs as he defended what’s become one of his administration’s signature policies.

    Mr. Trump touted his tariff policy as helping the U.S. raise new revenue, which he said has driven “record investment” in U.S. manufacturing. 

    “A dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone,” Mr. Trump wrote Sunday in a Truth Social post. He didn’t provide additional details on how such rebates would be disbursed to Americans.

    On Wednesday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News that the rebates would likely be given to families making “less than, say, $100,000.” 

    That threshold is still in discussion, though, Bessent added. 

    Mr. Trump has previously floated the idea of tariff rebates for individuals. In July, he said the administration was considering giving Americans a small rebate based on the billions the federal government has collected in tariff revenue since Mr. Trump took office.

    The president’s suggestion comes as a core section of his tariff policy is now before the U.S. Supreme Court, with some of the justices appearing skeptical last week of Mr. Trump’s use of the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to authorize wide-ranging import duties. 

    The White House did not immediately respond to CBS News’ request for comment on how the administration would disburse the checks.

    How could a rebate work?

    Typically, rebates and stimulus payments are issued through the tax code, requiring Congress to pass new legislation authorizing the Treasury Department to send checks.

    For instance, the three stimulus checks issued during the pandemic were authorized by Congress, with the payments signed into law by Presidents Trump and Biden.

    Earlier this year, Congress overhauled the tax code through the Republicans’ “big, beautiful” tax and spending bill, which created new breaks such as eliminating taxes on some tipped income and overtime. The law doesn’t include rebates or dividends for taxpayers.

    Bessent on Sunday told Fox News that the dividend “could come in lots of forms, in lots of ways.” 

    He added, “You know, it could be just the tax decreases that we are seeing on the president’s agenda — you know, no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security, deductibility of auto loans.”

    Is there enough tariff revenue to pay a $2,000 dividend?

    Paying $2,000 to about 150 million adults earning $100,000 or less would require roughly $300 billion in revenue, according to Erica York, vice president of federal tax policy at the Tax Foundation, in a post on X. 

    “Only problem, new tariffs have raised $120 billion so far,” she said. 

    For the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, the federal government raised $195 billion in customs duties, according to the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

    U.S. importers have paid nearly $89 billion in tariffs imposed under the IEEPA, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data. The Trump administration has also tapped other regulations aside from IEEPA to introduce new tariffs.

    If the Supreme Court rules that the IEEPA tariffs are unlawful, those businesses could be entitled to refunds, curtailing the tariff revenue available for rebate checks.

    A rebate for most taxpayers would also add to the national debt, York added.

    “The math gets worse accounting for the full budgetary impact of tariffs: a dollar of tariff revenue offsets about 24 cents of income and payroll tax revenue,” she said. “Adjusting for that, tariffs have raised $90 billion of net revenues compared to Trump’s proposed $300 billion rebate.”

    On Monday, Mr. Trump said in a Truth Social post that “money left over” from the payments would be used to pay down the national debt. 

    Could tariff checks boost inflation? 

    The stimulus checks during the pandemic were credited by economists with boosting inflation, which reached a 40-year high in 2022. Sending ew tariff checks to almost every U.S. household could risk another bout of inflation by stimulating demand for goods and services without boosting their supply, York said.

    That could occur at a time when inflation is already inching higher, partly due to the Trump administration’s tariffs, according to economists. While U.S. businesses are eating some of the tariffs in the form of lower profits, they’re also passing some costs onto consumers. 

    Tariff dividends “would be another factor pushing inflation up rather than bringing it down,” she said, noting that the stimulus checks likely boosted inflation by between one to three percentage points. 

    “It would be smaller, but it would still increase the budget deficit by giving people more money,” she added.

    A White House official said that “the economists making that assertion are baselessly speculating” about a possible inflationary impact, noting that there aren’t many details yet about the plan.

    Edited by

    Aimee Picchi

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  • Vietnam Eyes Tariff Deal Soon, as US Seeks to Cut Huge Trade Deficit

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    By Khanh Vu and Francesco Guarascio

    HANOI (Reuters) – Vietnam is working to sign a trade agreement with the United States soon, Deputy Prime Minister Bui Thanh Son said on Wednesday, as a new round of negotiations gets underway in Washington. 

    In October, the two countries agreed to finalise a trade deal within weeks that would maintain U.S. tariffs of 20% on its imports of Vietnamese goods, but exempt some unspecified products from the new duty imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump in August.

    Son urged U.S. businesses at a conference in Hanoi to help in bilateral negotiations so that the two parties could “soon sign a fair and balanced trade agreement.” 

    Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Michael DeSombre, told the conference in a recorded statement that the trade deal should rebalance commercial flows between the two countries, reducing the U.S. deficit with Hanoi, which is the largest after China and Mexico.

     For the first 10 months of the year, Vietnam has recorded a $111 billion trade surplus with the U.S. – pointing to another potential annual record – according to Vietnamese data, which is usually more conservative than U.S. trade figures, currently unavailable because of an ongoing federal government shutdown.

    A Vietnamese delegation led by Trade Minister Nguyen Hong Dien is in Washington this week for a new round of talks with U.S. officials to work on finalising the trade agreement, the Vietnamese trade ministry said on its web portal.

    A person briefed about the talks said negotiations would focus on identifying Vietnamese items that could be exempted from U.S. tariffs, such as coffee, and on the scope of the preferential access to the Vietnamese market that Hanoi has pledged for U.S. products, such as cars and farm goods. 

    The Vietnamese side aimed to finalise the deal ideally after the U.S. Supreme Court decides on the legality of U.S. tariffs imposed by Trump, and possibly by December, the person said, declining to be named because the information was not public. The court ruling is expected anytime before the end of this year and mid-2026.

    Vietnamese negotiators are keen to mark the signing of a trade deal with a meeting between Trump and Vietnam’s top leader To Lam, multiple officials have said.

    Son urged U.S. businesses at Wednesday’s conference to support Vietnam’s efforts to set up the high-level meeting. Past attempts have not been successful, according to multiple officials.

    He also called on U.S. businesses to encourage Washington to recognise Vietnam as a market economy and lift its restrictions on the export of high-tech products, such as advanced semiconductors. 

    DeSombre said Vietnam could play a role in global supply chains for critical minerals. Vietnam has large resources of rare earths and gallium but has been slow in exploiting them.

    (Reporting by Khanh Vu and Francesco Guarascio; Editing by David Stanway and Kate Mayberry)

    Copyright 2025 Thomson Reuters.

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  • A 107% U.S. import tax on Italian pasta could make your favorite spaghetti pricier — or hard to find

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    Americans may soon be paying more for their favorite Italian pasta brands — or even have trouble finding imported spaghetti — as the Trump administration eyes a new import duty on 13 of Italy’s largest pasta exporters.

    The proposal, published by the Commerce Department in September, would add a new 92% antidumping duty after a U.S. government probe found that some Italian pasta brands, including La Molisana and Pastificio Lucio Garofalo, were selling their products below U.S. market prices. Combined with the existing 15% tariff on European Union imports, the total duties on Italian-made pasta could rise to 107%.

    That would represent one of the Trump administration’s highest import duty rates on any product, according to the Wall Street Journal, which earlier reported on the pasta dispute.

    If the anti-dumping duty goes into effect, the impact on American consumers would be substantial, according to Phil Lempert, food industry analyst and editor of SupermarketGuru. Some Italian pasta makers may simply stop exporting their products to the U.S., while others might raise their prices, he added. 

    “You don’t have enough domestic manufacturing to fill up those shelves,” Lempert said. “So you’re going to walk into the pasta aisle and you’re going to see it half empty.”

    White House spokesperson Kush Desai told CBS News, “Italian pasta is not ‘disappearing.’” 

    He added that the antidumping duty is a proposal and that it is not yet final. “The pasta makers still have several months to continue participating in this review before this preliminary finding becomes finalized,” he said.

    Yet some Italian pasta companies are preparing to pull out of U.S. stores as soon as January because of the threat of the new antidumping duty, according to the Wall Street Journal. 

    Which pasta brands could be affected?

    The antidumping duties — a type of federal tariff applied to imported products sold in the U.S. for less than their market value — would impact 13 Italian pasta makers, including La Molisana and Garofalo, according to a U.S. Department of Commerce publication. The companies did not immediately respond to CBS News’ request for comment.

    • Agritalia
    • Aldino
    • Antiche Tradizioni Di Gragnano
    • Barilla 
    • Gruppo Milo 
    • La Molisana
    • Pastificio Artigiano Cav. Giuseppe Cocco
    • Pastificio Chiavenna
    • Pastificio Liguori 
    • Pastificio Lucio Garofalo
    • Pastificio Sgambaro
    • Pastificio Tamma 
    • Rummo

    What comes next for Italian pasta

    Desai, the White House spokesperson, told CBS News that the companies in question failed to adhere to multiple data requests from the Commerce Department as part of a long-running probe into Italian pasta makers that has been ongoing since the mid-1990s.

    Desai added that there’s no “hard date” for when the duties would take effect. 

    The Commerce Department and International Trade Administration did not immediately respond to CBS News’ requests for comment.

    American pasta makers have long accused their Italian rivals of unfairly undercutting them on price. But the Commerce Department’s proposal may mark a tipping point for Italian exporters that rely heavily on the U.S. market.

    Last year, the U.S. imported pasta from Italy valued at $684 million, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity, which offers global trade data.

    Edited by

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  • What to know about Trump’s $2,000 tariff dividend proposal

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    Over the weekend, President Donald Trump promised Americans $2,000 each from the “trillions of dollars” in tariff revenue he said his administration has collected. 

    During his second term, Trump has imposed tariffs broadly on countries and on specific goods such as drugs, steel and cars.

    “People that are against Tariffs are FOOLS!,” Trump said in a Nov. 9 Truth Social post. “We are taking in Trillions of Dollars and will soon begin paying down our ENORMOUS DEBT, $37 Trillion. Record Investment in the USA, plants and factories going up all over the place. A dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone.”

    How seriously should people take his pledge? Experts urged caution. 

    Tariffs are projected to generate well below “trillions” a year, making it harder to pay each person $2,000. And the administration already said it would use the tariff revenue to either pay for existing tax cuts or to reduce the federal debt.

    Trump’s post came days after the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments about the legality of his tariff policy. The justices are weighing whether Trump has the power to unilaterally impose tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. If the justices rule against Trump, much of the expected future tariff revenue would not materialize.

    What Trump proposed, and who would qualify

    The administration has published no plans for the tariff dividends, and in a Nov. 9 ABC News interview, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he hadn’t spoken to Trump about giving Americans a dividend payment. 

    Details about a potential payment have been limited to Truth Social posts. 

    Trump said “everyone” excluding “high income people” would get the money, but didn’t explain who qualifies as “high income.” He also didn’t say whether children would receive the payment. 

    In a Nov. 10 Truth Social post, Trump said his administration would first pay $2,000 to “low and middle income USA Citizens,” and then use the remaining tariff revenues to “substantially pay down national debt.”

    Trump hasn’t said what form the payments might take. Bessent said the dividend “could come in lots of forms, in lots of ways. You know, it could be just the tax decreases that we are seeing on the president’s agenda. You know, no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security, deductibility of auto loans. So, you know, those are substantial deductions.”

    Analysts said it’s a stretch to rebrand an already promised tax cut as a new dividend.

    Trump has previously discussed paying Americans with tariff revenue. 

    “We have so much money coming in, we’re thinking about a little rebate but the big thing we want to do is pay down debt,” he told reporters July 25. “We’re thinking about a rebate.”

    Days later, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., introduced legislation that would give $600 tariff rebate checks to each American adult and child. Hawley’s bill has not advanced.

    Tariff revenue collected versus cost of a “dividend” payment

    Trump made the imposition of tariffs one of his signature 2024 campaign promises. Since taking office in January, he has enacted tariffs on a scale not seen in the U.S. in almost a century; the current overall average tariff rate is 18%, the highest since 1934, according to Yale Budget Lab.

    Through the end of October, the federal government collected $309.2 billion in tariff revenue, compared with $165.4 billion through the same point in 2024, an increase of $143.8 billion.

    The center-right Tax Foundation projects that tariff revenue will continue to increase to more than $200 billion a year if the tariffs remain in place.

    Erica York, the Tax Foundation’s vice president of federal tax policy, estimated in a Nov. 9 X post that a $2,000 tariff dividend for each person earning under $100,000 would equal 150 million adult recipients. That would cost nearly $300 billion, York calculated, or more if children qualified. That’s more than the tariffs have raised so far, she said. 

    The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget projected that Trump’s proposal could cost $600 billion, depending on how it is structured.

    The administration previously detailed other uses for tariff revenue

    The Trump administration already promised to use tariff revenue for other purposes, including reducing the country’s deficit and offsetting the cost of the GOP tax and spending bill Trump signed into law in July.

    As Trump announced new tariffs April 2, he said he would “use trillions and trillions of dollars to reduce our taxes and pay down our national debt.”

    Bessent has made the same promise, falsely saying in July that tariffs were “going to pay off our deficit.”

    Bessent said in August that he and Trump were “laser focused on paying down the debt.”

    “I think we’re going to bring down the deficit-to-GDP,” Bessent said in an Aug. 19 CNBC interview. “We’ll start paying down debt and then at a point that can be used as an offset to the American people.”

    Tariffs’ current cost to Americans 

    Tariffs are already costing Americans money, analysts say. Independent estimates range from about $1,600 to $2,600 a year per household. Given the similarity of these amounts to Trump’s proposed dividend, York said it would be more efficient to remove the tariffs.

    Joseph Rosenberg, Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center senior fellow, said a $2,000 dividend in the form of a check would require congressional approval — and lawmakers have already declined to act on that idea once.

    When members of Congress approved the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, “They had the ability to include a tariff dividend, but they didn’t,” Rosenberg said.

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  • Trump Says US, Uzbekistan Reach Trade Deal

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    WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States and Uzbekistan have reached a trade and economic deal, President Donald Trump said on Thursday, stating that Uzbekistan plans to purchase and invest $35 billion in the next three years and more than $100 billion in the next 10 years in some U.S. sectors.

    (Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)

    Copyright 2025 Thomson Reuters.

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  • How Far Can Donald Trump Take Emergency Power?

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    On Wednesday, Solicitor General D. John Sauer insisted that the “most natural” and “common-sense” reading of IEEPA’s authorization to regulate importation is that it encompasses a power to impose tariffs, even though the word “tariff” is not used in the statute. If the Court decides against the President, the lucid performance of Neal Katyal, representing one set of challengers, must be credited with demonstrating that commonsense runs the other way. “It’s simply implausible that in enacting IEEPA Congress handed the President the power to overhaul the entire tariff system and the American economy in the process, allowing him to set and reset tariffs on any and every product from any and every country at any and all times,” Katyal said.

    In recent years, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority has made clear that when the executive branch takes actions that have vast “economic and political significance”—as Trump’s tariffs obviously do—there may be “reason to hesitate before concluding that Congress meant to confer such authority.” In those situations, the Court’s major-questions doctrine, which it named and formalized in 2022, requires the executive to point to “clear congressional authorization” to act in such a manner. Applying the major-questions doctrine in 2023 to Biden’s cancellation of student loans, the Court held that Congress’s authorization to “waive or modify” laws and regulations on student debt did not cover student-debt relief.

    In terms of economic and political impact, Trump’s tariffs are at least as major as Biden’s student-debt relief, and so the major-questions doctrine would seem to predict a decision against the President. But Sauer argued that the doctrine doesn’t hold with regard to foreign affairs, where the President has some inherent constitutional authority. This follows Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s suggestion, in a concurrence earlier this year, that the doctrine wouldn’t apply in “national security or foreign policy contexts,” where “the usual understanding is that Congress intends to give the President substantial authority and flexibility.” In oral arguments, however, it became clear that, in the case of tariffs, the major-questions doctrine can’t be so easily sidestepped. Foreign affairs or not, “tariffs are taxes,” in that they raise revenues, Katyal pointed out. “They take dollars from Americans’ pockets and deposit them in the U.S. Treasury.” Sauer resisted conceding that tariffs are taxes, claiming that their purpose is “regulatory,” not “revenue-raising,” but on this Katyal was helped by Sauer’s own brief for the President, which couldn’t help but tout the trillions of dollars that his tariff scheme is expected to bring in. Because the Constitution grants Congress, not the President, the power to tax, Katyal said, any congressional authorization for the President to impose tariffs must be given explicitly. (Chief Justice Roberts seemed on board, calling taxation a “core power” of Congress.)

    If the Court were to conclude that Congress, in IEEPA, did authorize the President to levy tariffs, the Court would then have to consider whether Congress violated the separation of powers in doing so. The Court’s nondelegation doctrine is meant to insure that Congress does not hand over its power to make law. Yet, for nearly a century, the Court has considered very broad delegations to the President and concluded that they don’t run afoul of the nondelegation doctrine, leading many to believe the doctrine nearly dead. But, in recent years, several of the conservative Justices, in dissents, have seemed ready to start striking down some delegations as being too unspecific to be consistent with the separation of powers. Katyal reminded the Court that just last term, Justice Neil Gorsuch, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, took the position, in a dissent, that Congress had unconstitutionally delegated its taxing power to the F.C.C. in authorizing a tax on phone and internet bills to subsidize rural internet access. The current case could present an occasion for a conservative majority to declare that Congress, in IEEPA, unconstitutionally delegated its taxing power—making Trump’s tariffs unlawful.

    Justice Gorsuch told Sauer that he was “struggling” to “accept the notion that Congress can hand off the power to declare war to the President,” which Gorsuch took to be a logical implication of Sauer’s seeming contention that congressional delegations to the President in foreign affairs are essentially unreviewable. Gorsuch professed to be “delighted” when, in response to his questioning, Sauer “backed off that position.”

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  • Supreme Court ruling against Trump on IEEPA wouldn’t mean the end of all tariffs, experts say

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    High tariffs on America’s trading partners are likely to remain in place even if the Supreme Court rules that President Trump improperly invoked federal emergency powers to impose the levies, according to trade experts.

    In a hearing on Wednesday, several of the high court justices appeared skeptical of Mr. Trump’s use of the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to implement sweeping tariffs on nearly every country. Trump administration officials say the policies are needed to reduce the nation’s trade deficit and spur domestic manufacturing. 

    Ted Murphy, co-leader of the global arbitration, trade and advocacy practice at law firm Sidley Austin, said Mr. Trump is unlikely to abandon tariffs, noting that the president has other legal tools at his disposal to maintain sharply higher duties on imports.

    “Our view is that even if the Supreme Court were to strike down the IEEPA tariffs going forward, the result won’t be any different,” Murphy said. “The U.S. will be living in a higher tariff rate environment going forward — it just might be under different tariff authorities.”

    Other statutes the Trump administration could lean on to impose broad tariffs instead of IEEPA include Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which allows the president to impose duties on trade partners to protect national security. Mr. Trump could also draw on Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, under which the Department of Commerce would need to investigate whether foreign trade partners engage in any unfair trade practices. 

    Still, a Supreme Court ruling against Mr. Trump would represent a blow to his economic agenda. Murphy noted that the process for implementing Section 232 and 301 tariffs, which Mr. Trump applied to imports such as steel and aluminum during his first term as president, is more limiting and cumbersome than the broad authority granted under IEEPA.

    “Section 232 and 301 are the most obvious directions for the administration to turn, but they’d likely take months to conclude, rather than weeks,” added Patrick Childress, an international trade attorney at Holland & Knight.  

    Potential tariff refunds 

    An adverse ruling for Mr. Trump could require the U.S. government to offer billions of dollars in refunds to businesses. Through August, importers had paid a total of nearly $89 billion in IEEPA tariffs, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.

    Said Rick Woldenberg, CEO of toy company Learning Resources, a plaintiff in the IEEPA case before the Supreme Court, “I definitely want my money back,” adding that the “government has chosen to hit us with a massive tax.”   

    The U.S. has an average tariff rate of 18%, the highest tax on foreign goods since 1934, according to the Yale Budget Lab.

    Although a ruling against Mr. Trump’s use of IEEPA could lead to a refund for businesses, it could also sow more uncertainty, Grace Zwemmer, associate economist at Oxford Economics, told CBS News.

    “It would be unlikely to significantly alter where we see tariffs ending up in our forecast, and the economic implications,” she said. “It is only going to lead to heightened uncertainty regarding trade policy, so it might have a lagged impact on hiring and business investment, similar to what we saw earlier this year.”

    The White House did not respond to a request for comment on whether Mr. Trump would turn to other laws as an avenue for imposing tariffs if the Supreme Court rules against him on using IEEPA.

    U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent on Wednesday told Fox Business that he’s optimistic that the court will rule in Mr. Trump’s favor. 

    “I’m confident that the President’s emergency powers…we did have emergencies, the President has dealt with them. He’s continuing to deal with them,” he said. 

    Experts expect a ruling in the case early next year. 

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