Trump's rolling tariff campaign

Tariffs are back at the center of U.S.-China policy, but not in the clean, sweeping way Trump originally wanted. The big change this year is legal. In February, the Supreme Court knocked out his broadest tariff move. The White House did not back off. It just started rebuilding the same pressure campaign with older trade laws that are narrower, slower, and harder to explain in one sentence. ### What did the court actually kill? The court killed Trump’s attempt to use the IEEPA. The justices said that law lets a president regulate economic transactions during emergencies, but not impose tariffs. That mattered because IEEPA had become the administration’s fastest way to slap duties on broad categories of imports, including from China. ### So why didn’t the tariff campaign end? Because Trump returned to Section 122, Section 232, and Section 301. Those sound like legal codewords because they are, but basically each one offers a different route to the same goal — make imports cost more and use that pressure for leverage. The catch is that these laws come with different limits, procedures, and political risks. ### What does Section 122 do? Section 122 is the quickest tool for balance-of-payments problems and large trade deficits. Tax Foundation says Trump used it to put a 10% tariff on nearly all countries effective February 24, covering about $1.2 trillion of imports. That is broad, but it is also temporary by design, which makes it a bridge, not a permanent architecture. ### Why is China still the main target? Because Section 301 is built for a unilateral answer with tariffs or other restrictions. After the Supreme Court ruling, USTR Jamieson Greer pointed to Section 301 as a core replacement tool, and new investigations tied to Chinese industries followed in March. That keeps the China pressure campaign alive even without the emergency-powers shortcut. ### What about Section 232? Section 232 allows tariffs on national security grounds or other industries the administration argues are strategically sensitive. That matters because it survives the IEEPA ruling entirely. So even if the broad emergency tariffs are gone, product-by-product tariffs can still stack on top of older China duties and keep effective rates high. ### Why does this feel so messy? Section 301 gets activated, then talks resume, then new probes begin. Reuters’ May 6 timeline describes exactly that pattern — truces, accusations, investigations, and more talks. This is less a single trade policy than a rotating pressure machine. ### What does this mean for companies? Uncertainty, mostly. A broad tariff is blunt but it lets negotiators see what sticks. Thomson Reuters notes that businesses are now dealing both with potential refunds on invalidated duties and with fresh replacement tariffs arriving through other channels. ### Bottom line? Trump-era U.S.-China trade is now being shaped less by one grand doctrine than by a running legal improvisation that keeps the pressure on while never fully settling the rules.