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EPA
US President Donald Trump has said that he will impose global tariffs of 15%, as he continued to rail against a Supreme Court ruling that struck down his previous import taxes.
Trump said on Friday that he would replace the tariffs scrapped by the court with a 10% levy on all goods coming into the US.
But on Saturday, he announced on Truth Social that this would be increased to the maximum allowed under a never-used trade law.
These will come into force on Tuesday 24 February and can only stay in place for around five months before the administration must seek congressional approval.
The new 15% tax rate - a temporary solution under Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act - raises questions for countries such as the UK and Australia, which had agreed a 10% tariff deal with the US.
Trump said his administration had reached the decision to raise the levy following a review of the Supreme Court's "ridiculous, poorly written, and extraordinarily anti-American decision on Tariffs issued yesterday".
In a 6-3 decision, justices on the highest US court found that the president had overstepped his powers when he introduced sweeping global tariffs last year using a 1977 law known as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).
The US has already collected at least $130bn in tariffs using IEEPA, according to the most recent government data.
Immediately following the ruling, Trump said that he was "ashamed of certain members of the court" and called the justices who rejected his trade policy "fools".
The decision to strike down the tariffs was joined by the court's three liberal justices, Chief Justice John Roberts, a conservative nominated by George W Bush and two justices nominated by Trump: Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch.
Three conservative justices, Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh and Samuel Alito, dissented.
The US president has argued his tariffs are necessary to reduce the trade deficit - the amount by which imports exceed exports - but the US trade deficit reached a fresh high this week, widening by 2.1% compared to 2024 and hitting roughly $1.2 trillion (£890bn).
Drew Greenblatt, owner of Marlin Steel Wire Products, a steel fabrication plant in Baltimore, said he was "very disappointed" by the Supreme Court's decision.
"It is a setback for poor people in America that had a chance to climb into the middle class with great manufacturing jobs," he told the BBC.
But John Boyd, a soybean farmer from Virginia and founder of the National Black Farmers Association, said: "This is a huge win for me and a big loss for the president.
"I don't care how you look at it, President Trump lost on this."
Yet Allie Renison, a former UK government trade adviser and director at SEC Newgate, said: "While it may seem like a good day for free trade, I think trade actually just got a lot messier."
She said that businesses are now facing "much more of a patchwork approach" to tariffs under the Trump administration.
It means that US businesses will have to pay a 15% tariff to import most goods into America under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974.
But some products will be exempted such as critical minerals, metals and pharmaceuticals.
Meanwhile, separate tariffs on steel, aluminium, lumber and auto-motives - introduced using a different US law - remain in place, untouched by the Supreme Court's ruling.
On Friday, a White House official said countries that previously reached trade deals with the US, including the UK, would face the global tariff under Section 122 rather than the tariff rate they had previously negotiated.
However, the UK's deals around steel, aluminium, pharmaceuticals, autos, and aerospace sectors - which represent most of its trade with the US - were not impacted.
The UK government said it expects Britain's "privileged trading position with the US" to continue and that it is a "matter for the US to determine" whether those deals still stand.
William Bain, head of trade policy at the British Chambers of Commerce, has said he feared that the president's response to the Supreme Court ruling "could be worse for British businesses".
The new 15% import tariffs are "bad for trade, bad for US consumers and businesses" and will "weaken global economic growth", the leader of a UK business group said.
In remarks made before Trump announced the new levy rate of 15%, French President Emmanuel Macron said France will adapt, adding that the "fairest possible rules involve reciprocity, not suffering unilateral decisions".
Likewise, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz warned of the "poison" of more uncertainty around tariffs.
Merz said he would work closely with other EU countries on a joint position ahead of his upcoming trip to the US.
"The biggest poison for the economies of Europe and the US is this constant uncertainty about tariffs. And this uncertainty must end," Merz said.
Watch: BBC inside Trump press briefing slamming Supreme Court tariffs ruling
The Supreme Court ruling also opened the door for consumers and businesses to seek refunds from the unlawful tariffs, though the high court did not make a decision on whether reimbursements should be issued.
On Friday, Trump indicated that refunds would not come without a legal battle which, he claimed, could take years. Companies and trade groups have already vowed to seek such reimbursements.
But Neil Bradley, chief policy officer at the US Chamber of Commerce, said: "Swift refunds of the impermissible tariffs will be meaningful for the more than 200,000 small business importers in this country and will help support stronger economic growth this year."
While the National Retail Federation, which represents millions of American businesses, urged the courts "to ensure a seamless process to refund the tariffs to US importers".
It said: "The refunds will serve as an economic boost and allow companies to reinvest in their operations, their employees and their customers."
US Senator Maria Cantwell, a Democrat representing Washington state, has asked US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent whether the administration has a plan to refund businesses that already paid tariffs.
Cantwell, who introduced a bill to reaffirm Congress' role in setting and approving US trade policy, called on the treasury department to "implement an expeditious and transparent process" to remediate the financial harm.
Democratic Senator John Fetterman told Fox News that has an "open mind" about Trump's tariffs and urged the president to work with lawmakers.
"If we can use those tariffs to go after China... I would absolutely would vote for and support those things," he said, though adding that he does not understand tariffs on US allies.
Republican lawmakers such as House speaker Mike Johnson and Senate majority leader John Thune have backed Trump's 10% tariff plan, but have not yet reacted to the 15% tariffs the president announced on Saturday.
