Trade Tidbits – January 9, 2026

They Just Keep Us Hangin’ On

Today is a decision day at the Supreme Court. Does that mean this is the big IEEPA decision? Shake your nearest magic 8 ball because we don’t know. They technically have until June and plenty of decisions to release. We’ll find out at 10:00am what’s the dillio.

In the meantime, over 1,000 companies have now filed suits hoping to safeguard their refunds just in case, with the latest estimates showing $150 billion in refunds potentially at stake. The Court of International Trade (CIT) adopted a blanket order freezing these suits until SCOTUS rules. And just in time, CBP’s introducing an all-electronic refund process in February. They won’t be able to say the check’s in the mail, though it could still get lost in the series of tubes.

Yesterday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters the Administration remains confident it will prevail. He added, “What is not in doubt is our ability to continue collecting tariffs at roughly the same level in terms of overall revenue…What is in doubt, and it’s a real change for the American people, was the president loses flexibility to use tariffs, both for national security, for negotiating leverage.”

Bloomberg was the latest to run an article laying out backup options, and since we may be looking at a decision today, it’s worth reupping my running list. The aforementioned article does mention Section 201 for the first time that I’ve seen anywhere, so I’ll add that to my list.

1. Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. Our old friend. On one hand, they could launch a bunch of new Section 301s. I’ll also note, though, that I believe there are some “dormant” Section 301s on digital services taxes that were launched during Trump 1.0 but paused (but not ended) under President Joe Biden that could be revived pretty quickly. By my count (someone please correct me if I’m wrong), the investigations launched were against Austria, Brazil, the Czech Republic, the EU, France, India, Indonesia, Italy, Spain, Turkey, and the UK. The Biden Administration only terminated Austria, France, India, Italy, Spain, Turkey, and the UK. That leaves Brazil, the Czech Republic, the EU, and Indonesia. It looks like the Section 301 tariffs on the EU and UK relating to the Boeing-Airbus WTO case were only suspended and not ended by the Biden Administration too.
2. Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. There are plenty of those already launched and ready to go. And factoring in the inclusions process – not to mention the ability of the Commerce Secretary to add derivatives out of cycle – these tariffs have the ability to reach pretty far, as long as a product has steel, aluminum, copper, wood, semiconductors, critical minerals, or polysilicon; is an auto, truck, or plane part; and is robotics or industrial machinery.
3. Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930. This statute allows the President to impose tariffs on countries that are determined to have discriminated against U.S. commerce. A hook could be that most countries have higher tariffs than the U.S. I’ll note that Secretary Bessent has specifically mentioned this one.
4. Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. This statute allows the President to impose an up to 15% tariff on imports for 150 days, subject to an extension by Congress. To take such an action there must be a “large and serious” balance of payment deficit; an “imminent and significant” dollar depreciation; or coordination with other countries to correct an “international balance-of-payments disequilibrium.” This is a statute the Court of International Trade (CIT) suggested in its ruling as a better avenue than IEEPA.
5. Section 201 of the Trade Act of 1974. This statute allows the President to impose tariffs for four years (with one four-year extension). Tariffs are capped at 50% and must phase down after a year. Section 201 tariffs were imposed in Trump 1.0 before even Section 232. However, it’s a more laborious process than Section 232, requiring International Trade Commission (USITC) public hearings and comments. And no Section 201s have been prepositioned like the Section 232s, so they’d be starting at square one.
6. The International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). One of the plaintiffs’ lawyers argued (Page 116 of the transcript) that tariffs are not allowed under IEEPA, but things like quotas and embargoes are. Tariff-rate quotas weren’t raised, but licensing fees were (Page 46). Could they do a rebrand or shuffle some things around?