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Senior White House officials on Thursday downplayed the implications of a court ruling that blocked a swath of President Donald Trump’s tariff measures, and expressed confidence about an appeal.
“If anybody thinks this caught the administration by surprise, think again,” Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro said on Bloomberg Television. “Nothing’s really changed.”
The U.S. Court of International Trade on Wednesday found that the president had exceeded his authority in invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to justify some of his sweeping levies.
“The big picture here is we’ve got a very strong case with IEEPA,” Navarro argued. “But the court basically tells us, if we lose that, we just do some other things.”
National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said the administration is not yet pursuing alternative options. Speaking on Fox Business, he said the administration is confident the court ruling is incorrect and that it will be successful on appeal.
“There are different approaches that would take a couple of months to put these in place and using procedures that have been approved in the past or approved in the last administration, but we’re not planning to pursue those right now,” Hassett said.
Navarro said that U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer will speak on tools available, and that “you’ll be hearing from him soon.” Among the potential measures, Navarro mentioned Section 122 tariffs, which involve levies of up to 15% for 150 days. The reason that wasn’t used at the start was it “only gives you 150 days,” he said.
Analysts at Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. earlier said the implications of the court ruling may be limited for the trade talks the Trump administration is engaged with, given the other tariff options available.
Hassett indicated that, indeed, the administration intends to keep pushing ahead on negotiating deals with trading partners despite the legal uncertainty—and that he expected more agreements in the coming weeks.
Wednesday’s court ruling gave the administration 10 days to carry out its order. It applies to Trump’s global flat tariff, elevated rates on China and others, and his fentanyl-related tariffs on China, Canada and Mexico but leaves other levies imposed via other means, such as so-called Section 232 and Section 301 levies, untouched for now.
“There’s no question that there’s an economic emergency,” Navarro said. There’s also an emergency “in a world where China has killed over a million Americans with fentanyl poison, and we took this step to stop that,” he said.
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