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Bessent says Trump tariffs could return by July after Supreme Court setback
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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent suggested Tuesday that President Donald Trump’s tariffs could be restored as early as July, signaling a rapid pivot by the Trump administration after the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s IEEPA-based tariffs earlier this year, forcing the administration to turn to other trade authorities.
«We had a setback at the Supreme Court in terms of the tariff policy,» Bessent said Tuesday at an event hosted by the Wall Street Journal. «But we will be implementing or conducting Section 301 studies — so the tariffs could be back in place at the previous level by [the] beginning of July.»
His remarks come after the Supreme Court ruled in February that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, does not authorize tariffs.
Trump has billed tariffs as «life or death» for the U.S. economy — underscoring the outsize importance the administration has placed on the issue.
TRUMP TARIFF PLAN FACES UNCERTAIN FUTURE AS COURT BATTLES INTENSIFY
A protester holds a sign as the U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments on President Trump’s tariffs on Nov. 5, 2025. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Bessent’s comments also come as the U.S. collected more than $133 billion in IEEPA tariff duties as of mid-December, according to data published by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency, a figure that later grew to roughly $166 billion by early March 2026.
The administration moved to preserve tariffs in the weeks since the Supreme Court’s ruling to find new ways to implement the import fees, invoking several provisions of the U.S. Trade Act of 1974 in order to do so.
Bessent’s remarks, first reported by Bloomberg, are a sign that the Trump administration plans to enact a combination of statutes under the trade law as it looks to move past the high court’s ruling and find new ways to sustain U.S. tariff pressure.
The strategy, long-term, appears to focus largely on Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which allows the president and the U.S. Trade Representative’s office (USTR) to implement «retaliatory import restrictions» against a country that is found to have engaged in unfair or «discriminatory» trade policies or practices towards U.S. businesses.
Section 301 allows the U.S. Trade Representative to investigate and respond to «unfair» foreign trade practices flagged by the president, though they require a formal period of notice and public comment, delaying enforcement.
Since the Supreme Court’s ruling, the Trump administration has initiated a flurry of more than 75 investigations under Section 301, according to a report from Alan Wm. Wolff, a senior fellow for the Peterson Institute for International Economics — far outpacing the average annual number of Section 301 investigations initiated during the past five decades.
TRUMP WARNS SUPREME COURT TARIFF SHOWDOWN IS ‘LIFE OR DEATH’ FOR AMERICA
President Donald Trump speaks during a trade announcement event in the Rose Garden at the White House on April 2, 2025. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
That’s not the only lever administration officials have pulled in an effort to keep Trump’s tariffs in place, however.
Trump last month announced new 10% global tariffs — an emergency provision under the trade law that allows a president to unilaterally impose import fees of up to 15% on U.S. trading partners for a period of 150 days, to respond to large and serious «balance of payments deficits,» or instances that risk immediately depreciating the power of the dollar.
The Section 122 announcement prompted a lawsuit from 24 attorneys general, who argued the move was an illegal attempt to «sidestep» the Supreme Court’s ruling. It also prompted another lengthy hearing before the U.S. Court of International Trade in Manhattan Friday, as judges on the three-member panel weighed the legality of Trump’s effort.
Lawyers for the challenges told the court Friday that upholding the administration’s broader view of the law would effectively turn Section 122 into an all-purpose trade weapon.
US COURT OF INTERNATIONAL TRADE SIDES WITH TRUMP IN TARIFF CASE
President Donald Trump during a press conference at the White House on Feb. 20, 2026. (Mandel Ngan/Getty Images)
But Justice Department lawyer Brett Shumate argued that Congress had provided presidents with broad discretion to assess economic conditions.
«A trade deficit was a large driver of a balance of payments deficit in 1974 as it is today,» Shumate said.
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«We’re not on the gold standard anymore,» he said. «We don’t have a fixed currency, but we can still have balance-of-payment problems.»
donald trump, politics, supreme court, federal courts, global economy, economy
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President Donald Trump took to social media on Wednesday morning to showcase the power of his political endorsements, touting that the candidates he backed went 37-0 in Tuesday’s GOP primaries from coast to coast.
«We won all races last night. Every one of them,» Trump told reporters.
The brute force of the president’s endorsement power and the immense grip he has on the Republican Party were on full display in a number of high-profile ballot-box showdowns, including Trump-backed Ed Gallrein ousting Rep. Thomas Massie in the GOP primary in Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District, a race that grabbed outsized national attention.
But Trump’s heavy hand in this year’s primaries could cause repercussions in the autumn, when Republicans will be defending their razor-thin House and slim Senate majorities in the midterm elections.
TRUMP-BACKED FORMER NAVY SEAL DEALS KNOCKS OUT MASSIE IN HIGH-STAKES SHOWDOWN
President Donald Trump talks to reporters before boarding Air Force One on May 20, 2026 at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland. Trump showcased the power of his political endorsements in answering reporter questions. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
While those concerns will mount as the midterms creep closer, on Tuesday night the political headline was Trump once again successfully flexing his muscles to exert payback on Republicans who defied him.
Two weeks after purging five state senators in Indiana’s primary who had opposed his push for congressional redistricting, and three days after helping to oust Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana — as the senator who, five and a half years ago, voted to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial lost his bid for renomination — Trump obliterated Massie.
Massie, who for 14 years has represented Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District, in the northeastern part of the red-leaning state, has long been one of Trump’s most vocal GOP critics in Congress. The libertarian-minded lawmaker has repeatedly taken aim at the president over foreign policy, including the Iran war and unconditional U.S. military aid to Israel. And he’s also been a thorn in Trump’s side for successfully pushing for the release of government files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
DEMOCRACY ’26: STAY UP TO DATE WITH THE FOX NEWS ELECTION HUB
Rep. Thomas Massie speaks to supporters at his primary night event in Hebron, Ky., on May 19, 2026. (Paul Steinhauser/Fox News)
Gallrein’s nearly ten-point victory over Massie in a race that was expected to be much closer represents a major win for Trump’s political operation and pro-Israel allied groups, who spent aggressively to unseat the sitting lawmaker.
Speaking at his victory celebration, Gallrein thanked Trump for his support, saying, «My focus is on advancing the president’s and the party’s agenda to put America first and Kentucky always.»
Taking to social media after Massie’s defeat, White House communications director and longtime Trump aide Steven Cheung warned, «Do not ever doubt President Trump and his political power. F–k around, find out.»
Veteran Republican strategist and communicator Ryan Williams told Fox News Digital, «The Republican Party is Trump’s party, and if you cross him, he’ll hit back at you ten times as hard and defeat you. He’s getting better at this as time goes on. His grip on the party has increased, not decreased.»
«Anybody at this point who doesn’t understand this will be out of a job if they cross the president,» Williams emphasized.
Meanwhile, Rep. Andy Barr of Kentucky, backed by Trump in recent days, cruised to the Republican Senate nomination in the race to succeed retiring Sen. Mitch McConnell, a former longtime Senate GOP leader.
And Sen. Tommy Tuberville, a top Trump ally in the Senate, easily captured the GOP gubernatorial nomination in solidly red Alabama.
But some Trump-backed candidates will have to wait a little longer before securing a ticket to the general election.
Republican Lt. Gov. Burt Jones of Georgia finished first in the GOP gubernatorial primary, but didn’t top 50%, forcing a runoff next month with billionaire businessman Rick Jackson.
It was the same story in Alabama, where Trump-backed Rep. Barry Moore finished first but will need another victory in next month’s runoff to secure the Republican Senate nomination in the race to succeed Tuberville.
And this past weekend, Trump-backed Rep. Julia Letlow was forced into a runoff with Louisiana Treasurer John Fleming as Cassidy was sent packing.
Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana fist bumps a supporter during a campaign stop at a gun retailer and firing range in Baton Rouge on May 15, 2026, the eve of the state’s Senate primary. (Paul Steinhauser/Fox News)
Trump putting his hand on the scale in red states like Louisiana, Alabama and Kentucky shouldn’t be an issue in the general election, but it could be in battleground Georgia, and in red-leaning Texas, where Democrats are hoping to win a U.S. Senate election for the first time in nearly four decades.
Democrats feel Trump gave them an early Christmas gift by endorsing MAGA firebrand and ally and supporter Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton over longtime GOP Sen. John Cornyn with one week to go until the runoff election for the Republican nomination.
«Ken is a true MAGA Warrior who has ALWAYS delivered for Texas, and will continue to do so in the United States Senate,» Trump wrote in a social media post as he announced his backing of Paxton, which likely ends Cornyn’s hope of winning renomination.
The winner of the GOP runoff will face off in the autumn with rising Democratic Party star state Rep. James Talarico, who has built a massive war chest this year while Cornyn and Paxton have traded fire in their combustible race.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, the National Republican Senatorial Committee and many GOP leaders in the nation’s capital saw Cornyn as the candidate better equipped to successfully defend the seat in Texas, which Democrats are trying to flip as they work to win back the chamber’s majority.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, speaks to the media on primary night in Austin, Texas, on March 3, 2026. (Jack Myer/AP)
That’s because Paxton has faced a slew of scandals and legal problems that have battered him over the past decade, as well as his ongoing messy divorce.
Some Republicans are concerned this could be a flashback to 2022, when then-former President Trump flexed his muscles in the GOP primaries, with some of his picks, including Georgia’s Herschel Walker, falling short in the midterms, as Republicans failed to win back the Senate.
«Trump got his way in most of the primaries in 2022 also. Didn’t portend great results in the general election,» vocal Trump critic and GOP consultant Sarah Longwell posted on social media Tuesday night.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, was endorsed by President Donald Trump on Tuesday. (Julio Cortez/AP Photo)
Williams said, «The president has shown that he puts personal loyalty over political considerations even when it puts a safe seat at risk.»
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And pointing to this year’s midterms, when the GOP as the party in power will face traditional headwinds as well as an extremely challenging political climate, Ryan said, «That’s the situation Republicans find themselves dealing with heading into what should be a challenging midterm election.»
midterm elections, donald trump, republicans, kentucky, georgia, alabama, texas
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Mojtaba Khamenei using ‘bin Laden template’ to survive, learned from Abbottabad: analyst
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Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has spent nearly three months in hiding as tensions with the U.S. escalate — a disappearance that counterterrorism analysts say mirrors the final years of al Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden.
The comparison comes amid a critical standoff between Washington and Tehran that prompted President Donald Trump to pause a planned strike on May 19. On Wednesday, Trump told reporters he was in «no hurry.»
Khamenei, meanwhile, appeared to share three posts on his official X account on May 18 but remains out of public view.
«For the first time in the history of the Islamic Republic, the United States has done to Tehran what it spent two decades doing to al-Qaeda and ISIS,» counterterrorism expert Dr. Omar Mohammed told Fox News Digital.
THE MISSING MULLAH: IRAN’S ‘SUPREME LEADER’ A NO-SHOW FOR NEGOTIATIONS, THEN HID AS US POUNDED NUKE SITES
Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei is shown in a portrait image. (Fox News)
«The U.S. has driven its leader into the same kind of operational invisibility that bin Laden lived in for 10 years in Abbottabad,» he added.
«Both Mojtaba Khamenei and bin Laden inherited their status on the back of an American operation, and both responded the same way: by ceasing to exist publicly,» Mohammed said before adding that bin Laden «stopped releasing dated videos around 2007 and confined himself to audio messages carried by hand.»
Bin Laden founded al-Qaeda in the late 1980s and masterminded the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the United States.
After the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, bin Laden evaded capture for a decade by hiding inside a fortified compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
To avoid Western electronic surveillance, he severed his digital footprint and relied exclusively on a network of physical couriers, said Mohammed, an expert with the Antisemitism Research Initiative at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism.
U.S. intelligence eventually tracked one of those couriers to the compound, culminating in the 2011 Navy SEAL raid that killed the al Qaeda leader.
OPERATION EPIC FURY: HOW AMERICA’S AIR POWER IS CRUSHING IRAN’S TERROR REGIME
Portrait of former al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden was killed in 2011 in a daring SEAL Team 6 raid in Pakistan. (Photo by Stephane Ruet/Sygma via Getty Images)
«Bin Laden survived with no cables out of the Abbottabad compound. Communications were carried by hand by two trusted couriers, the Kuwaiti brothers,» Mohammed said.
«Bin Laden stayed hidden for the rest of his life because the moment he surfaced was the moment he died. Mojtaba’s incentives point the same way. Mojtaba Khamenei won’t emerge,» he said.
«The Abbottabad lesson, which Tehran will have studied closely, is that the safest hiding place is not a cave in Tora Bora but a walled compound in a garrison town,» Mohammed added, recalling how U.S. forces targeted bin Laden in the cave complex before he escaped.
Bin Laden also lived roughly a mile from Pakistan’s top military academy, hiding in plain sight behind high concrete walls and barbed wire, Mohammed noted.
«The logical Iranian equivalents are hardened sites under or alongside IRGC facilities,» Mohammed added, referring to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and possible locations where Khamenei could be.
As previously reported by Fox News Digital, one of Khamenei’s few recent communications was an X post declaring a «holy war,» framing the geopolitical clash as a mandatory religious obligation.
INSIDE IRAN’S RULING IDEOLOGY: HOW A ‘HOLY MISSION’ AND MESSIANIC DOCTRINE FUEL REGIME EXTREMISM
President Donald Trump said, «I got him before he got me» after Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several top leaders were killed in an Israeli strike in Tehran during the U.S.-Israeli military offensive called Operation Epic Fury. (Majid Saeedi/Getty Images; Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
«This is a religious leader calling for sacred war against America and the Jews from an undisclosed location because his enemies have publicly vowed to kill him on sight,» Mohammed said, describing the narrative as «the bin Laden template, almost line for line.»
Mohammed also suggested Khamenei’s retreat into the shadows marks a watershed moment for Washington and the future of the Iranian regime.
His predecessor and father, Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed Feb. 28 in a targeted U.S.-Israeli airstrike in Tehran during Operation Epic Fury.
«This regime that for 47 years projected its power through a single visible Supreme Leader at the Friday prayer pulpit can no longer produce that figure on demand,» he said, calling it a «strategic milestone.»
«Predecessors killed by U.S. strikes and successors who cannot show their faces. Real power exercised by a security apparatus rather than by the nominal figurehead.»
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«Now one side is announcing operations on three continents through its president; the other is governed on paper by a man whose own population is uncertain where he is or what state he is in,» Mohammed said.
«The contrast is also about the optics of leadership during this war,» he added.
mojtaba khamenei, al qaeda terror, counter terrorism, war with iran, iran
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