Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news Trump’s new global 10% tariff is being applied under Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act, which allows the president to impose the charge for 150 days without congressional approval. The president has used this approach after the supreme court ruled that he had violated an emergency-powers law to enact his “reciprocal” tariffs on imported goods from countries around the world. We want to have clarity from the US that they are respecting the deal because that’s a crucial element.” At the moment the rate is 10% with White House officials stating that they are working on a formal order to raise to 15%. Perhaps the stacking concern is delaying things for now. Late yesterday, we also saw the WSJ and Bloomberg report that the administration was preparing new Section 232 national security investigations into several industries including batteries, telecom equipment and industrial chemicals. Remember that Trump’s delivering the State of the Union address tonight, so it’s possible we might get a better sense of the next steps on tariffs…net-net we still think the effective tariff rate will fall this year and that the world post-SCOTUS will see lower tariffs than the pre-SCOTUS world. Continue reading...