Trump: Plan B Needed If IEEPA Case Is Lost
President Donald Trump continues to argue that the Supreme Court will rule that his emergency tariffs are constitutional, and that the promises of investments from South Korea, Japan and the EU would evaporate without the 15% tariffs he imposed on their exports.
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"I can't imagine that anybody would do that kind of devastation to our country," he told reporters pressing him on what he'd do if the administration loses the case. A majority of Supreme Court justices asked questions at the oral argument Nov. 5 that implied skepticism of the use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to levy tariffs, but some of the conservative justices also questioned the logic of the plaintiffs' arguments.
However, for the first time, Trump acknowledged the administration may have to change tactics. "I think it would be devastating for our country [if we lose], but I also think that we'll have to develop a game two plan.
Trump said there are other ways to hike tariffs, "but they're slow by comparison." He said his threat of an additional 100% tariffs on Chinese goods after China announced an extraterritorial rare earth export licensing plan brought China to the table.
"We made a wonderful deal for everybody, our farmers, as you know, soybeans at levels that nobody had ever seen before," he said. The purchase promises are in line with historic levels, and below some years of purchases.
"If we didn't have the tariffs, we wouldn't have been able to do that," he added.
Trump also argued that he was able to end skirmishes between Pakistan and India by threatening tariffs on both if they didn't stop the fighting.
"And within 24 hours, I settled the war. If I didn't have tariffs, I wouldn't have been able to settle that one. So it's great national defense, and you have to be quick moving. You can't wait around for months and months when you're doing studies, and you're doing all of this work, or go back to Congress. Look at Congress. We can't even get a continuation [of federal funding] from Congress. Think of that. How are we going to have to go back to Congress? You have to do the spur of the moment."
He also acknowledged for the first time that American consumers may be paying some portion of the additional costs importers are facing due to the tariffs, "But when you take the overall impact, the Americans are gaining tremendously. They're gaining through national security. I'm ending war because of these tariffs. Americans would have to fight in some of these wars."
He added, "They're gaining in so many different ways, and they're gaining in self-respect for our own country. Other countries used to laugh at us. They would charge us, as Japan was charging us, massive tariffs, and yet they wouldn't allow our cars to be sold in Japan, but they were selling 9 million cars here, but they wouldn't allow one car. Not one car was sold in Japan. They don't laugh at us anymore."
Japan was not charging massive tariffs on U.S. goods; its average tariff is 3.7%, and its trade-weighted average is 1.9%. Where the U.S. used to charge 2.5% tariffs on imported cars, Japan had no tariff on automotive imports. Overall, almost 84% of Japan's imports outside of agriculture are duty-free, compared with 55.5% of U.S. non-ag imports before Trump returned to office. The American average tariff before these hikes was 3.3%, and its trade-weighted average was 2.2%.