WASHINGTON, FEB 23: President Donald Trump on Monday said any countries that wanted to “play games” after a key US Supreme Court tariff ruling would face much higher tariffs.

The court said tariffs Trump imposed last year based on a national emergency law were illegal, rekindling uncertainty from other countries about already signed or pending trade deals with the United States.

“Any Country that wants to ‘play games’ with the ridiculous Supreme Court decision, especially those that have ‘Ripped Off’ the US for years, and even decades, will be met with a much higher Tariff, and worse, than that which they just recently agreed to. BUYER BEWARE!!!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.

Trump, on February 20, vowed to continue his global trade war after the US Supreme Court ruled that he lacked the power to unilaterally set tariffs on imports

Responding to the court verdict, the US president said he was undeterred by what he called a ridiculous ruling, announcing new 10% tariff on imports from all countries.

A day later, he said he will raise the temporary tariff from 10% to 15% on US imports from all countries, the maximum level allowed under the law.

The new levies are grounded in a separate but untested law, known as Section 122, that allows tariffs up to 15% but requires congressional approval to extend them after 150 days.

In a social media post, Trump said he would use the 150-day period to work on issuing other “legally permissible” tariffs. The administration intends to rely on two other statutes that permit import taxes on specific products or countries based on investigations into national security or unfair trade practices.

“I, as President of the United States of America, will be, effective immediately, raising the 10% Worldwide Tariff on Countries, many of which have been ‘ripping’ the US off for decades, without retribution (until I came along!), to the fully allowed, and legally tested, 15% level,” he wrote in his post.

The US Supreme Court’s annulment of Trump’s tariffs and his subsequent move to impose a temporary 15% global tariff have thrown world trade into a new bout of confusion.

For some countries — notably China and Brazil — the new 15% baseline is substantially lower than the US tariffs they had been dealing with.

But for the couple of dozen countries that had sought to avoid the impact of the reciprocal tariffs by clinching bilateral deals with the United States — Britain, the European Union and Japan among them — the question now is whether those deals will stick.