The US Supreme Court’s ruling last week on President Donald Trump’s tariffs has been perceived as a significant setback for his administration’s economic and foreign policy agenda. Having previously called the verdict “deeply disappointing” in its immediate aftermath, Trump on Tuesday (February 24) reiterated his displeasure during what was his longest State of the Union address to date (108 minutes), where he said that despite the court’s “very unfortunate ruling”, the “threat of tariffs” would “remain in place under fully approved and tested alternative legal statutes”.

A recent piece in Financial Times by Peter Navarro, senior White House counsellor for trade and manufacturing, attempted to read between the lines of the court ruling, focusing on these “alternative legal statutes”.

Navarro, considered the chief architect of Trump’s tariff strategy, has targeted India in the past. In an FT op-ed last August, he had accused India of funding Russia’s war in Ukraine by acting as a “global clearinghouse for Russian oil”  and calling India’s dependence on Russian crude “opportunistic”.

So, what is Navarro’s contention on the recent judgment and what are these “alternative” laws? We explain.

Navarro said that last week’s ruling was one of those moments where “what looks like a defeat proves to be a strategic win”. But he highlighted that all the court did was to rule that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), invoked by Trump, did not include the power to impose tariffs, citing that tariffs were effectively a form of taxation which raise revenue and thus required Congressional approval.

He wrote: “The court did not declare tariffs unconstitutional. It did not strike down section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act. It did not invalidate section 301 of the Trade Act. It did not question the use of sections 122, 201 or 338.” He also pointed out that only three justices relied on the “major-questions” doctrine: a number of Supreme Court decisions have declared that if an agency seeks to decide an issue of major national significance, its action must be supported by clear Congressional approval. Here though, the court created no sweeping precedent limiting presidential trade authority.

He emphasised that even as it struck down IEEPA tariffs, the court acknowledged that “the president retains broad and powerful authority under numerous other statutes to impose tariffs”, singling out Justice Brett Kavanaugh (a Trump appointee) for offering a “rigorous and historically grounded defence” of presidential tariff power in his dissent.

Navarro stated that Kavanaugh’s opinion had underlined the historical understanding of tariffs as a traditional form of regulating imports, while listing down the statutes that remained in place. They are as under:

Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, 1962: The statute “allows the President to impose restrictions on goods imports or enter into negotiations with trading partners if the U.S. Secretary of Commerce determines, following an investigation, that the quantity or other circumstance of those imports ‘threaten to impair’ U.S. national security”.

The Library of Congress notes that the second Trump administration till date has launched 12 such investigations and concluded five, wherein “the Commerce Secretary found national security threats in all five investigations, and President Trump has imposed tariffs in four cases.” During the first Trump administration (2017-2021), there were seven investigations and barring one, the secretary found a threat to national security in all.

Navarro argued that Trump was already relying on Section 232 to impose national security tariffs on products such as steel and aluminium, and — potentially — on critical minerals. He added that it “continues to safeguard industries vital to national security”.

Section 301 of the Trade Act, 1974: Also known as “Relief from Unfair Trade Practices”, this section empowers Congress to grant the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) “a range of responsibilities and authorities to investigate and take action (e.g., impose a tariff) to enforce U.S. rights under trade agreements and respond to certain foreign trade practices”.

According to the Library of Congress, there are two ongoing investigations related to various practices by Brazil and the implementation of commitments made by China under the
“Phase One” agreement, a bilateral trade deal signed on January 15, 2020 in order to resolve ongoing trade tensions since 2018. It also noted that tariffs on imports from China imposed under Section 301 in 2018 remain in effect.

While naming China, Navarro said that “Section 301 investigations are advancing country by country and practice by practice”. Interestingly, the Library of Congress mentions that the USTR recently concluded investigations into China’s shipping practices, semiconductor practices, and labour and human rights practices in Nicaragua.

Section 122 of the Trade Act, 1974: This statute was recently in the news, when Trump invoked his authority under Section 122 to issue an executive order imposing global tariffs, first at 10% and later raising it to 15% — the highest rate allowed under that. Unless extended by Congress, those tariffs are limited to 150 days and notably, no US president has previously used Section 122 to this effect. In his piece, Navarro mentions this “temporary global surcharge”.

Neal Katyal, the Indian-origin American lawyer who represented small businesses affected by these tariffs against the Trump administration in the Supreme Court, responded to Trump’s announcement in a post on X: “Seems hard for the President to rely on the 15 percent statute (sec 122) when his DOJ in our case told the Court the opposite… If he wants sweeping tariffs, he should do the American thing and go to Congress.”

Section 201 of the Trade Act, 1974: Part of the USTR’s enforcement functions, these actually refer to investigations (“Section 201 Investigations”) conducted under Section 203 of the Act. It empowers the president to “take all appropriate and feasible action within his power” to make it easier for domestic industry to adjust “to import competition and provide greater economic and social benefits than costs”.
Navarro highlighted these as “safeguard measures”, which he said that Trump had used in his first term to impose tariffs on solar panels and washing machines, with protections on solar still in place.

Section 338 of the Tariff Act, 1930: A Great Depression-era statute, this empowers the president to impose tariffs up to 50% or even total import bans in case of discrimination against US commerce. In an article, ING economists Carsten Brezski and Julian Geib wrote that although the provision was “untested in modern trade law, lacks procedural safeguards, and would invite immediate legal challenges”, the Trump administration could choose to use it if it “wants to signal maximum aggression”.

‘Good news’

In his 2026 State of the Union address, Trump attributed the country’s “stunning economic turnaround” to tariffs, saying that countries “that were ripping us off for decades” were now paying the US “hundreds of billions of dollars”.

But he said that “these countries are now happy and so are we” because of the deals that had been struck. “Almost all countries and corporations want to keep the deal that they already made… Knowing that the legal power that I as president have to make a new deal could be far worse for them,” he added.

This bit of “good news” from Trump echoed what Navarro wrote: “Any country that believes the court’s ruling strengthens its hand — or allows it to walk away from the bargaining table — is misreading the moment.” In Navarro’s reading, the court had “closed one door while leaving an entire corridor of tariff authority wide open”. On the power of the president to impose tariffs, he said: “The tools remain, and the statutory footing beneath them is now clearer.”

In that sense, what Trump said during his annual address about using those “tools” was not too far off either. “They’re a little more complex, but they’re actually probably better — leading to a solution that will be even stronger than before. Congressional action will not be necessary… And as time goes by, I believe the tariffs, paid for by foreign countries, will, like in the past, substantially replace the modern-day system of income tax.”