Court rules Trump’s 10% tariff is just as illegal as the tariff it replaced

法院裁定：特朗普的10%关税与其所取代的关税同样非法

The day after the Supreme Court struck down a set of Donald Trump’s emergency tariffs, the president quickly imposed another, using a never-before-invoked provision of a decades-old trade law to order a global 10 percent tariff on most imports. 在最高法院驳回特朗普的一系列紧急关税措施后的第二天，总统迅速实施了另一项关税，利用一项数十年贸易法中从未被启用的条款，下令对大多数进口商品征收10%的全球关税。

Now, that second set of tariffs has been deemed illegal, and there are no more emergency levers that Trump can pull to try to replace them any time soon. That leaves Trump without much negotiation leverage a week before he’s set to meet with China’s President Xi Jinping, who already appeared to have the upper hand heading into talks. 现在，第二套关税已被裁定为非法，且特朗普短期内已没有其他紧急手段可以用来替代它们。这使得特朗普在与中国国家主席习近平会晤前一周失去了大部分谈判筹码，而习近平在进入会谈时似乎已占据上风。

For Trump, when the US Court of International Trade invalidated his global tariffs, his key trade policy—which relies on imposing tariffs to supposedly drive more manufacturing into the US—was put at risk of being gutted. Moving forward, Trump won’t be able to rely on the law to collect the global tariffs. 对于特朗普而言，当美国国际贸易法院裁定其全球关税无效时，他依赖征收关税以推动更多制造业回流美国的核心贸易政策面临被掏空的风险。展望未来，特朗普将无法再依据该法律征收全球关税。

Lucky for Trump, the international trade court’s narrow ruling did not require a universal injunction blocking tariffs nationwide, and it limited refunds to only importer plaintiffs who sued. That could help the Trump administration avoid even more chaos after Customs and Border Patrol recently began processing refund requests to comply with the Supreme Court ruling. 幸运的是，国际贸易法院的裁决范围较窄，并未要求在全国范围内发布禁止征收关税的普遍禁令，并将退款范围仅限于提起诉讼的进口商原告。这或许能帮助特朗普政府避免进一步的混乱，此前海关及边境保卫局刚开始处理为遵守最高法院裁决而产生的退款请求。

However, it’s unclear if the court’s ruling could prompt additional lawsuits from other importers that are seeking refunds, as well as anyone who can argue they have been harmed by the global tariffs, such as non-importer customers who can prove they paid higher prices linked to tariffs. 然而，目前尚不清楚该裁决是否会引发其他寻求退款的进口商，以及任何能证明自己因全球关税而受损的人（例如能证明因关税支付了更高价格的非进口商客户）提起更多诉讼。

Trump will most likely appeal the ruling. But in the meantime, it likely puts immediate pressure on his administration to quickly conclude investigations into tariff regimes that may be available under other statutes. That could take weeks, if not months, analysts expect. 特朗普极有可能会对该裁决提出上诉。但在此期间，这可能会给其政府带来直接压力，迫使其迅速完成对其他法规下可能适用的关税制度的调查。分析人士预计，这可能需要数周甚至数月的时间。

On Friday, Trump “criticized the judges” at the international trade court, while telling reporters that he would pursue his tariff agenda under other authorities, The New York Times reported. “So, we always do it a different way,” Trump said. “We get one ruling, and we do it a different way.” 据《纽约时报》报道，周五，特朗普“批评了”国际贸易法院的法官，并告诉记者他将通过其他授权继续推行其关税议程。“所以，我们总是用不同的方式来做，”特朗普说。“我们收到一个裁决，我们就换一种方式做。”

Why the global tariff is illegal

为什么全球关税是非法的

In a 2-1 ruling, Chief Judge Mark A. Barnett and Judge Claire R. Kelly decided that tariffs that Trump imposed under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 were illegal. Trump had tried to argue that the law allowed him “to impose temporary surcharges up to 15 percent” in order to combat “fundamental international payments problems” and “to deal with large and serious United States balance-of-payments deficits.” 在一项2比1的裁决中，首席法官马克·A·巴尼特（Mark A. Barnett）和法官克莱尔·R·凯利（Claire R. Kelly）裁定，特朗普根据《1974年贸易法》第122条征收的关税是非法的。特朗普曾试图辩称，该法律允许他“征收最高15%的临时附加费”，以应对“根本性的国际收支问题”和“处理美国巨大且严重的国际收支逆差”。

If the court allowed the temporary tariffs, he had planned to impose even steeper tariffs under the authority, but the unfavorable court ruling obviously hobbled that strategy. Fatal for Trump, his argument relied on the caveat that he was authorized to decide what was considered a “balance-of-payments” deficit. Trump’s advisors had agreed that was a “malleable phrase.” 如果法院允许这些临时关税，他原计划利用该授权征收更严厉的关税，但不利的法院裁决显然阻碍了这一策略。对特朗普而言致命的是，他的论点依赖于一个前提，即他有权决定什么是“国际收支”逆差。特朗普的顾问们曾承认这是一个“可塑的词汇”。

Disputing that, the importers suing successfully argued that Trump had unlawfully redefined the term. They alleged he’d twisted its meaning in a way that ignored the circumstances when the law was initially drafted—which was back when the US dollar was pegged to gold. The importers emphasized that “the President lacked authority to invoke Section 122 because large and serious balance-of-payments deficits cannot occur in a floating exchange rate monetary system,” which the US adopted after abandoning the gold standard. 对此，提起诉讼的进口商成功辩称，特朗普非法重新定义了该术语。他们指控他扭曲了其含义，忽略了该法律最初起草时的背景——即美元与黄金挂钩的时期。进口商强调，“总统无权援引第122条，因为在浮动汇率货币体系下，不可能出现巨大且严重的国际收支逆差”，而美国在放弃金本位制后已采用该体系。

To sum it up, Trump had no authority because the US no longer uses the gold standard, they argued. The court agreed that Congress couldn’t have intended to grant Trump such expansive authority as he argued was acceptable under the law. 简而言之，他们认为特朗普没有权力，因为美国已不再使用金本位制。法院同意，国会不可能意图授予特朗普他所声称的法律允许范围内的那种广泛权力。

“If the President has the ability to select among the sub-accounts to identify a balance-of-payments deficit, unless every sub-account is balanced, the President would always be able to identify a balance-of-payments deficit,” the majority ruled. 多数派裁定：“如果总统有能力在各子账户中进行选择以确定国际收支逆差，那么除非每个子账户都平衡，否则总统将永远能够认定存在国际收支逆差。”

In a footnote, the majority said that Trump had also argued that the phrase “fundamental international payments problems” should not constrain him “at all.” The court did not have to rule on that matter, but judges clarified that “the court cannot accept Defendants’ interpretation that disclaims the existence of any meaningful intelligible principle in either ‘fundamental international payments problems’ or ‘balance-of-payment deficits.’” 在脚注中，多数派表示，特朗普还曾辩称“根本性的国际收支问题”这一措辞“根本”不应限制他。法院无需就此作出裁决，但法官们明确表示：“法院无法接受被告的解释，即否认‘根本性的国际收支问题’或‘国际收支逆差’中存在任何有意义且可理解的原则。”

In its summary, the court ruled that words have meanings. Ultimately, the court put forward its own interpretation of the statute, which rejects both sides’ readings of Section 122, the dissenting opinion from Judge Timothy C. Stanceu said. 在总结中，法院裁定词语是有含义的。蒂莫西·C·斯坦苏（Timothy C. Stanceu）法官的异议意见书指出，最终，法院提出了自己对该法规的解释，拒绝了双方对第122条的解读。

That judge did not fight for Trump to keep his tariffs, necessarily. Instead, he disagreed with the court’s interpretation, as well as the timing of the ruling, arguing that parties should have been given time to respond to the court’s interpretation before the court issued an opinion. 这位法官并不一定是在为特朗普保留关税而战。相反，他不同意法院的解释以及裁决的时机，认为在法院发布意见之前，应给予各方时间来回应法院的解释。

“We are not experts in international macroeconomics matters and should hesitate to question whether it was reasonable for the President to rely on” calculations that the majority deemed in line with legislative history, “rather than a calculation of his own that may have been acceptable,” Stanceu wrote. 斯坦苏写道：“我们不是国际宏观经济事务的专家，对于总统依赖多数派认为符合立法历史的计算方式，而不是他自己可能被接受的计算方式，我们是否应该质疑其合理性，应当持谨慎态度。”

Claiming there were no factual disputes to weigh, the majority agreed that plaintiffs showed that harms from unlawful tariffs were imminent and ongoing, requiring relief in the form of a permanent injunction that must be granted once the court reached a decision on how to interpret the statute. Trump’s efforts to block the injunction by arguing that it would intrude on his conduct of foreign affairs were “unpersuasive,” judges ruled, finding instead that “enjoining unlawful conduct is in the public interest.” 多数派声称没有事实争议需要权衡，并同意原告已证明非法关税造成的损害是迫在眉睫且持续存在的，因此需要以永久禁令的形式提供救济，一旦法院就如何解释该法规做出决定，就必须授予该禁令。法官们裁定，特朗普试图通过辩称禁令会干涉其外交事务来阻止禁令的努力是“缺乏说服力的”，并认为“禁止非法行为符合公共利益”。

What’s Trump’s next move?

特朗普的下一步行动是什么？

What happens next is anyone’s guess, but don’t expect Trump to give up on tariffs. After the Suprem… 接下来会发生什么尚不可知，但不要指望特朗普会放弃关税。在最高法院……