THE ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States striking down President Donald Trump’s use of emergency powers to impose sweeping tariffs has curtailed one of his most forceful trade tools, yet economists caution that it offers scant immediate relief to the global economy.
Reuters, on Saturday, reported that instead, analysts foresee a renewed period of disruption and policy ambiguity, as the White House moves swiftly to deploy alternative legal mechanisms to reinstate trade levies and trading partners reassess recently concluded bilateral agreements with Washington.
Responding to the judgment on Friday, Trump announced new global tariffs of 10 per cent for an initial 150-day period and conceded that it remained unclear whether importers would receive refunds for duties already collected under the invalidated measures.
“In general, I think it will just bring in a new period of high uncertainty in world trade, as everybody tries to figure out what the U.S. tariff policy will be going forward,” said Varg Folkman, an analyst at the European Policy Centre.
“In the end it’s going to look pretty much the same.”
Economists at ING echoed that assessment, stating: “The scaffolding has come down, but the building remains under construction. No matter how today’s ruling reads, tariffs are here to stay.”
The decision concerns tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, legislation designed for national emergencies. Those measures are estimated to have generated more than US$175 billion in revenue.
According to trade policy monitor Global Trade Alert, the ruling alone reduces the United States’ trade-weighted average tariff rate from 15.4 per cent to 8.3 per cent.
For countries facing the steepest duties, including China, Brazil and India, the reduction amounts to double-digit percentage point cuts, though tariff levels remain elevated.
Attention is now turning to the fate of the roughly two dozen bilateral arrangements struck between Washington and trading partners seeking to mitigate the impact of Trump’s tariff regime, in some cases by pledging investment in the United States.
With the legal basis of key levies overturned, governments may judge that they have scope to reopen negotiations.
Bernd Lange, chair of the European Parliament’s trade committee, indicated that lawmakers would move as early as Monday to ratify the European Union’s agreement with Washington, while assessing the implications of the court’s decision.
“The era of unlimited, arbitrary tariffs ... might now be coming to an end,” Lange wrote on X. “We must now carefully evaluate the ruling and its consequences.”
The British government, for its part, said it expected its preferential trading position with the United States — including a baseline 10 per cent tariff agreed with Washington — to remain intact.
Despite the legal setback for the White House, recent data suggest the global economy has thus far absorbed much of the tariff shock. A report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York this month found that American consumers and firms were bearing the bulk of the cost of Trump’s duties.
In its latest World Economic Outlook, the International Monetary Fund forecast global growth of a “resilient” 3.3 per cent in 2026. China, meanwhile, posted a record trade surplus of nearly US$1.2 trillion in 2025, driven by surging exports to markets beyond the United States as manufacturers adjusted supply chains in response to the tariff campaign.
Some governments may therefore opt to preserve existing trade deals rather than risk reopening fraught negotiations.
Folkman warned that revisiting agreements could invite “the kind of uncertainty we saw in the spring in 2025”, when Trump’s so-called “reciprocal” tariffs triggered widespread disruption.
However, Niclas Poitiers, a research fellow at Bruegel, noted that political doubts lingered over the EU–US accord, which critics in Europe viewed as disproportionately favourable to Washington.
“There could be circumstances in which the deal unravels,” he said. - February 21, 2026
