President Donald Trump's desire to impose new tariffs remains undeterred, even after the courts delivered the most devastating blow to his top job yet.

White House officials quickly signaled Thursday that Trump would pursue many of the same levies through other legal authorities if the appeal fails. Meanwhile, the administration is aggressively pushing to overturn the decision, saying it would go to the U.S. Supreme Court as early as Friday if a federal appeals court does not stop the initial ruling from taking effect while the challenge continues.

The ruling was "clearly wrong" and "we are confident that this decision will be overturned on appeal," the White House posted on X.

But for a president who wants to use trade policy to reshape global commerce, other policy options are not quick fixes. Some are difficult to use and would take months or longer to exercise, while others are limited in scope and duration.

Administration officials have made clear they intend to restore the levies one way or another, even as the administration appeals a Court of International Trade order that faulted the president's reliance on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, for his sweeping global tariffs.

"We had a very strong case with the IEEPA, but the court basically told us if we lose, we just do some other things," White House trade adviser Peter Navarro told Bloomberg Television on Thursday. "So nothing really changes. I want to say this to the world: ‘You screwed us. We're going to come after you. Deal with it, and let's fix this.'"

For all the confidence in the Trump team, Wednesday's court ruling marked one of the biggest setbacks of the president's second term. Trump campaigned on using tariffs to fight what he called unfair treatment of the U.S. by other countries, and the emergency law gave him the quickest path to fulfilling that promise. The ruling would reduce the effective U.S. tariff rate to below 6% from a high of nearly 27% last month, according to calculations by Bloomberg Economics, an astronomical level that risks causing stagnation for the U.S. (alg)

Source: Bloomberg