Trump Country Tariffs Struck Down by Supreme Court, Replaced by Temporary 10% Section 122 Surcharge
The country-specific “reciprocal” tariffs that defined the first year of Trump’s trade agenda are gone, struck down in court. But the tariffs on imports have not disappeared. They have been rebuilt on different legal ground and remain in effect today.
The Supreme Court Killed the Country Rates
In February 2026, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not authorize the president to impose tariffs. The decision invalidated the April 2025 “Liberation Day” reciprocal tariffs entirely, including every country-by-country rate: Vietnam at 46 percent, Thailand at 36 percent, Taiwan at 32 percent, the EU at 20 percent, and the stacked rates on China.
The government had collected an estimated $166 billion in IEEPA tariffs from more than 330,000 businesses, and that money is now required to be refunded. Customs and Border Protection launched a dedicated portal in April 2026 to process the refund claims.
So the specific country tariffs were canceled. The broad tariff wall was not.
Section 122 Replaced Them Within Hours
The same day the ruling came down, the administration invoked Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 to impose a flat 10 percent surcharge on imports from nearly every trading partner. It took effect February 24, 2026. This is the tariff most importers are paying right now on goods that do not carry a product-specific rate.
Two features make it fragile. First, Section 122 authority is time-limited: the surcharge expires July 24, 2026, unless Congress extends it, which is now days away. Second, the Court of International Trade ruled in May 2026 that using Section 122 for a broad across-the-board tariff exceeds what the statute allows. That ruling is under appeal, and the tariffs remain in force while the appeal proceeds.
The Product Tariffs Were Never Touched
None of the court fights reached the product-specific tariffs, because those rely on separate authority. Section 232 tariffs remain fully in place: steel and aluminum at 50 percent, autos at 25 percent, copper at 50 percent, semiconductors at 25 percent, and lumber at 10 percent. Section 301 tariffs on China, ranging from 25 to 100 percent, also stand.
These are the durable layer. They do not expire on July 24 and were not affected by the Supreme Court decision.
What Comes Next
The administration is now moving to reconstruct the country-level tariff wall through expanded use of Sections 301 and 232, which rest on firmer legal footing than IEEPA. New Section 301 investigations are already underway against multiple trading partners. The near-term question is what happens when the Section 122 surcharge lapses: rates could drop to zero for a window, Congress could extend the 10 percent, or the administration could replace it with permanent Section 301 duties built country by country.
The headline “country tariffs” of 2025 are legally dead. The functional tariff burden on imports is not.