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'Our country would be completely destroyed': Trump defends tariffs after US court setback; thanks Obama-appointed judge

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Days after a federal appeals court declared most of his tariffs illegal, US President Donald Trump on Sunday, strongly defended his trade policy and thanked an Obama-appointed judge for siding with him in the ruling.

In a post on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump said tariffs had brought “TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS” into the US and without them “our Country would be completely destroyed, and our military power would be instantly obliterated.”
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Trump wrote, “without Tariffs, and all of the TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS we have already taken in, our Country would be completely destroyed, and our military power would be instantly obliterated.”

He went on to criticise the court’s majority decision but praised one Democratic-appointed judge for supporting his position.

“In a 7 to 4 Opinion, a Radical Left group of judges didn’t care, but one Democrat, Obama appointed, actually voted to save our Country. I would like to thank him for his Courage! He loves and respects the USA,” Trump wrote.

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The US court of appeals for the federal circuit ruled this week that Trump had overstepped his presidential authority when he imposed wide-ranging “reciprocal tariffs” on nearly every country in April, and declared them unconstitutional, and illegal.

The ruling covered two sets of tariffs - Trump’s “reciprocal” duties imposed in April as part of his trade war and another set announced in February against China, Canada and Mexico.

The levies were set to cover about 69 percent of US imports but will now only affect around 16 percent unless overturned by the Supreme Court, before October 14, later this year.

Despite the setback, parts of Trump’s trade agenda remain intact. Sector-specific duties and some tariffs first introduced in his previous term, were not impacted by the ruling.

Most notably, Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs, imposed under Section 232, remain in effect. Recently, the administration broadened their scope, lifting duties to as high as 50% on more than 400 additional product categories, the commerce department said.

“Section 232 tariffs are central to President Trump’s tariff strategy. They aren’t the target of the pending litigation, and they’re more likely to survive a legal challenge and continue into the next presidential administration, which is what we saw with the aluminum and steel tariffs originally imposed under the first Trump administration,” Mike Lowell, a partner at law firm Reed Smith, told CNBC.

The Trump administration is said to be preparing to broaden its sector-specific tariffs, such as those on steel and aluminum, in an effort to sidestep the ongoing legal challenges, according to The Wall Street Journal.
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