type: timeline_event Within 24 hours of the Supreme Court's 6-3 decision striking down his IEEPA-based tariffs, President Trump invoked Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 to impose a new global tariff, effectively circumventing the Court's ruling. Section 122 allows the president to impose tariffs of up to 15 percent for a period of 150 days to address "large and serious" balance-of-payments deficits. The speed of the response suggested the administration had prepared the Section 122 action as a contingency well before the Supreme Court issued its decision.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent defended the action as a lawful exercise of a separate and distinct statutory authority, arguing that the Supreme Court's IEEPA ruling said nothing about the president's powers under the Trade Act. Bessent pointed to the nation's persistent trade deficits as justification for the balance-of-payments determination required by Section 122. Critics countered that the administration's transparent intent to maintain the exact same tariff regime the Court had just struck down—using a different legal label—constituted bad-faith circumvention of judicial authority rather than good-faith compliance with the ruling.
Constitutional scholars were divided on the legality. Some argued that Section 122 provided a legitimate, if limited, alternative authority and that the 15 percent cap and 150-day duration represented meaningful constraints absent from the IEEPA approach. Others contended that using Section 122 to replicate tariffs the Supreme Court had specifically found unlawful demonstrated contempt for judicial review and set a dangerous precedent in which the executive could effectively nullify adverse court rulings by shopping for alternative statutory hooks. Legal challenges were filed within days, setting up the prospect of a second round of tariff litigation at the Supreme Court. The episode illustrated the structural difficulty of constraining executive economic power when the president is determined to act regardless of judicial checks.