President Donald Trump got tight lipped Friday during an appearance on Fox News when pressed on what his administration would do were the courts to overturn his tariff policy.
“Well, I don't want to talk about it,” Trump told Fox and Friends host Lawrence Jones, when asked what his administration would do if the Supreme Court ultimately upholds a lower court’s ruling that the tariffs are illegal. “I guess we'll find something, but it would be a very tough thing to lose that case.”
Designed in part as a tool to increase the United States’ domestic manufacturing capabilities, tariffs have been among Trump’s key priorities during his second administration, having increased tariff rates on hundreds of countries. They were deemed unlawful, however, by a federal court last month, with the Supreme Court agreeing to take up the case in November.
And now, Trump has put enormous stock into the Supreme Court’s impending decision on the matter, proclaiming the upcoming case to be “one of the most important cases in the history of our country.”
“That Supreme Court case is so important,” Trump said. “We should [win the tariff case] on the legal merits – [if we don’t], we would have to give back trillions of dollars! That case is one of the most important cases in the history of our country.”
While Trump has celebrated the tariffs as having brought about an economic boom, Americans, largely, have rejected them outright.
Last November, 52% of Americans were in favor of new tariffs on imported goods according to polling analyzed by CNN earlier this month. As of late August, however, that figure plummeted down to 40%, with 60% outright opposed to new tariffs. Furthermore, 77% of poll respondents said they believed tariffs would increase costs on goods in the short term.
Trump’s tariffs resumed on Aug. 7 following a 90-day pause, and impacted the economy almost immediately; prices have increased, job growth has slowed dramatically and inflation has ticked up.
