The Trump administration signaled on Sunday that it was on track to resurrect many of its punishing tariffs that were struck down by the Supreme Court, insisting that the new approach would fulfill President Trump’s trade ambitions in a more legally durable way.
Through a new 15 percent global tariff that Mr. Trump announced on Saturday, and a set of coming trade investigations that may result in stiff tariffs on countries in Asia, the administration looked to project confidence that the legal setback would not deter its characteristic brinkmanship on trade.
“The president has been campaigning on tariffs and protecting American industry for many years,” Jamieson Greer, the U.S. trade representative, said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” adding, “The policy hasn’t changed.”
The centerpiece of Mr. Trump’s replacement is an across-the-board, 15 percent tariff, which he may keep in place for 150 days under Section 122, a portion of the Trade Act of 1974 that has never been used in this way. The administration also plans to initiate investigations into unfair trade practices using a second provision of that same law, called Section 301, which may yield tariffs later.
On Friday, Mr. Greer said that he would begin some of those inquiries, focusing on industrial excess capacity, forced labor, pharmaceutical pricing, discrimination against U.S. tech companies, and trade in seafood, rice and other products. The investigations would be carried out on an accelerated time frame, he said, and could lead to tariffs that apply to much of the world.
The administration said it would also continue its existing Section 301 investigations into China and Brazil. In his first term, Mr. Trump used the same tool to impose tariffs on Chinese imports.
On ABC, Mr. Greer said that those actions together had allowed the president to “reconstruct” his original slate of withering country-by-country tariffs, which had been imposed under emergency powers until the court invalidated that approach on Friday.
He said the alternative is “very durable,” and pointed out other ways in which the justices had empowered Mr. Trump on trade — indicating, for example, he could impose embargoes if necessary to accomplish those objectives.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on CNN on Sunday that the tariff revenue that the Trump administration was projecting to collect this year remained unchanged and that foreign trading partners have told him that they wanted to keep the trade deals that they had struck with the United States intact.
Mr. Bessent described the new 15 percent global tariff as a “bridge” to more enduring tariffs that will be rolled out later this year.
The Treasury secretary also demurred when pressed about that status of more than $100 billion of tariff refunds that U.S. importers are now expecting to receive. He said that those payments could take months to happen and would be determined by lower courts.
“It is not up to the administration,” Mr. Bessent said. “It is up to the lower court. Let’s just be clear on that.”
But the confidence exhibited by the White House contrasted starkly with the chaos and confusion bubbling up around the world in response to the latest rapid shift in U.S. trade policy, the consequences of which have frequently rattled financial markets and caused economic pain.
The money collected from Mr. Trump’s previous slate of duties — and the deals he inked with other nations as a result of them — all seemed to be in jeopardy in the wake of the president’s legal defeat. European Union officials suggested they might pause ratification of the agreement they brokered with Washington last year.
The trade uncertainty looms especially large as Mr. Trump prepares to head to China in the coming weeks for talks with the country’s leader, Xi Jinping. The two sides negotiated a trade truce last year after a damaging, tit-for-tat escalation that began after Mr. Trump accused China of unfair trade practices and violations of its own past commitments.
In an interview on “Fox News Sunday,” Mr. Greer projected optimism about those coming talks, even though the administration had lost access to one of its most potent tools to issue tariffs.
“The point isn’t trying to fight with China,” he said, adding that the goal was to “make sure that China is complying” with commitments it has made on trade.
Tony Romm is a reporter covering economic policy and the Trump administration for The Times, based in Washington.
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