Trump tariffs live updates: Trump blasts India as Bessent sees Supreme Court upholding tariffs
President Trump criticized the tariff and trade relationship between the US and India on Monday, saying it has been heavily one-sided for decades.
"In other words, they sell us massive amounts of goods, their biggest 'client,' but we sell them very little - Until now a totally one sided relationship, and it has been for many decades," Trump posted.
"It has been a totally one sided disaster! Also, India buys most of its oil and military products from Russia, very little from the US," he added.
Trump's comments came as India Prime Minister Narendra Modi has embarked on bids to strengthen ties with China and Russia as relations with the US have deteriorated.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Monday he is confident the Supreme Court will back President Trump's use of a 1977 emergency law to impose broad tariffs, but noted the administration has a backup plan if it doesn't.
Bessent told Reuters he is preparing a legal brief for the solicitor general that stresses the need to tackle long-standing trade imbalances and curb fentanyl entering the US.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration is still talking with trading partners, even after the US appeals court ruled most of Trump's tariffs illegal, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said Sunday.
A federal appeals court ruled Friday that most of Trump's global tariffs were illegal, reaffirming an earlier ruling by the Court of International Trade and saying he exceeded his authority in using emergency powers to impose them. The judges, however, allowed the tariffs to remain in place while the case moves through an appeals process.
Trump responded to the decision on Truth Social, saying, "ALL TARIFFS ARE STILL IN EFFECT!" He also called the court "Highly Partisan" and claimed that "with the help of the United States Supreme Court, we will use [tariffs] to benefit our nation."
It means the "reciprocal" tariffs Trump unveiled on dozens of US trade partners (which you can see in the graphic below) now face a fresh bout of legal limbo.
Elsewhere, Brazil's President Lula authorized retaliation against Trump's 50% US tariffs but says he still wants to negotiate, while Mexico plans to put higher tariffs on Chinese goods in its 2026 budget to shield local industry amid US pressure over cheap Chinese goods entering Mexico before heading north.
Read more: What Trump's tariffs mean for the economy and your wallet
Here are the latest updates as the policy reverberates around the world.
A federal appeals court struck down most of President Trump's Congress-averting global import tariffs Friday in a dispute that's predicted to head to the US Supreme Court.
The 7-4 ruling, issued by 11 judges for the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C., allows the tariffs to remain in place while the administration decides on an appeal to the US Supreme Court.
The decision upholds a ruling handed down in May by the US Court of International Trade (CIT), saying that the president lacked legal authority to order, by way of executive orders, a series of global tariffs imposed on US trading partners. [...]
The court emphasized that under the US Constitution, Congress is empowered to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises and to regulate commerce with foreign nations.
\\"Tariffs are a tax, and the framers of the Constitution expressly contemplated the exclusive grant of taxing power to the legislative branch,\\" the ruling said.
Read more here.
Swiss coffee machine maker Thermoplan grew from a small family business into a major Starbucks supplier during the late 1990s globalization wave, bringing over 500 jobs to its Alpine lakeside village.
But its future has been thrown into jeopardy due to President Trump's tariffs.
Reuters reports:
Thermoplan CEO Adrian Steiner calculates the 39% levy and separate U.S. tariffs on industrial metals are costing the company in Weggis, on the picturesque shores of Lake Lucerne, around 200,000 Swiss francs ($250,000) every week.
\\"We're bleeding,\\" he said. \\"It's obviously a losing business for us. We don't have the kind of margins to compensate for that.\\"
Thermoplan is already taking steps to enable production in Germany so it can export under lower European Union tariffs, and is considering moving jobs to the U.S. to shore up business there.
Read more here.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Monday he believes the Supreme Court will support President Trump's use of a 1977 emergency law to impose wide tariffs, but added the administration has an alternative if it does not.
He told Reuters he is drafting a legal brief highlighting the urgency of fixing trade imbalances and stopping fentanyl from reaching the US.
Reuters reports:
A divided U.S. appeals court ruled on Friday that most of Donald Trump's tariffs are illegal, undercutting the Republican president's use of the levies as a key economic policy tool. The court allowed the tariffs to remain in place through October 14 to give the Trump administration a chance to file an appeal with the Supreme Court.
The 7-4 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C., addressed the legality of what Trump calls \\"reciprocal\\" tariffs imposed as part of his trade war in April, as well as a separate set of tariffs imposed in February against China, Canada and Mexico aimed at halting imports of fentanyl.
The court's decision does not affect tariffs issued under other legal authority, such as Trump's tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.
Read more here.
Thousands of workers in Ciudad Juarez have lost their jobs as factories struggle under Trump-era tariffs and rising costs.
Reuters reports:
For 11 years, Fabiola Galicia worked her way up the ranks at a factory that produced decorative ribbons in Ciudad Juarez, just across the border from El Paso, Texas. Starting as a production line worker, she was eventually promoted to manager overseeing 30 employees.
But in June, her shift was cut to just three days a week. Then in August, a representative for Design Group Americas, which filed for bankruptcy protection last month, shut down its Ciudad Juarez factory, leaving Galicia and some 300 other workers without jobs.
In court filings, the company partially blamed its troubles on tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump. Galicia said a company representative also blamed Trump. “They told us the tariffs had affected the company,” said Galicia, whose husband also worked at the company and was laid off.
Read more here.
India's oil minister Hardeep Singh Puri, said on Monday that the country is not \\"profiting\\" from Russian oil imports and its purchases have stabilized markets, while also keeping prices from rising as much as $200 a barrel.
Reuters reports:
The US has targeted India for its Russian oil purchases, with President Donald Trump imposing tariffs on Indian exports to the U.S. to discourage the country's crude buying.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent accused India of profiteering by importing Russian oil at lower prices and then reselling refined fuel at a higher rate. White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said Indian purchases were funding Moscow's war in Ukraine.
\\"Some critics allege that India has become a ‘laundromat’ for Russian oil. Nothing could be further from the truth,” Puri wrote in an editorial.
Read more here.
President Trump criticized the trade relationship between the US and India on Monday, saying it has been heavily one-sided for decades.
Trump noted that while India sells large amounts of goods to the US, American businesses sell very little to India because of the high tariffs New Delhi have put in place, which he called the highest of any country.
\\"In other words, they sell us massive amounts of goods, their biggest “client,” but we sell them very little - Until now a totally one sided relationship, and it has been for many decades,\\" Trump posted.
\\"The reason is that India has charged us, until now, such high Tariffs, the most of any country, that our businesses are unable to sell into India. It has been a totally one sided disaster! Also, India buys most of its oil and military products from Russia, very little from the US\\"
Trump continued by saying India has offered to eliminate tariffs entirely. The US president said this action was overdue and that such trade policies should have been addressed years ago.
Yahoo Finance's Senior Reporter Allie Canal looks at President Trump's tariffs and the retailers who are feeling the impact:
American consumers are facing a new wave of pricing pressure as companies from food giants to hardware chains warn that tariffs are already making their way onto store shelves.
Retailers like Walmart (WMT), Target (TGT), and Best Buy (BBY) have all said in recent weeks that some tariff-related increases are starting to creep into the cost of groceries, home goods, and electronics.
Just this week, packaged food giant J.M. Smucker (SJM), home to such brands as Folgers, Dunkin', and Café Bustelo, warned of more price hikes after US coffee profits plunged 22% under tariffs.
Hormel Foods (HRL), the company behind Spam and Skippy, also flagged \\"the steep rise in commodity input costs\\" after missing earnings expectations in the quarter. Its stock fell 12% after the warning.
Adding to the uncertainty, a federal appeals court late Friday struck down most of President Trump’s global import tariffs, ruling the executive orders exceeded his legal authority.
Read more here.
Rice continues to be a sticking point between Japan and the us, as both countries navigate differing interpretations of their July trade agreement, much of which has not yet been implemented.
Bloomberg News reports:
Hiroshi Moriyama, secretary general of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, has stepped up his defense of the nation’s staple food over the weekend, according to local media reports. That followed a report by the Nikkei newspaper claiming that Japan’s chief trade negotiator Ryosei Akazawa had canceled his trip to the US last week because Washington proposed including an expansion of Tokyo’s US rice imports in an executive order.
The Trump administration had suggested including a cut to Japanese tariffs on agricultural products as well, the Nikkei said — a move that would go against Japan’s current understanding.
The latest apparent fracas over rice reflects the difficulties of actually implementing trade deals with the US even after a deal is reached. Japan has been trying to persuade the US to follow through on an agreement to cut auto tariffs to 15% from 27.5%, and remove the stacking of universal tariffs on top of existing levies, since an agreement was reached on July 22. But neither has taken effect in the form of an executive order.
Read more here.
Bloomberg News reports:
South Korea’s exports held up, buoyed by strong semiconductor and auto shipments, underscoring manufacturers’ resilience in the face of sweeping US tariffs.
Overseas shipments gained 1.3% in August from a year earlier, customs data showed Monday, following a 5.8% increase in July. On a working-day adjusted basis, exports gained 5.8%, after rising at the same pace in July. Imports declined by 4%, bringing the trade balance to a surplus of $6.5 billion.
Semiconductor exports jumped 27%, driven by demand for high-performance chips used in artificial intelligence, while vehicle shipments gained 9%. Exports to Southeast Asian nations rose almost 12% in August, a third consecutive advance, driven by strong shipments of semiconductors and vessels, according to a statement from the trade ministry.
The Trump administration said Friday it’ll revoke waivers for Samsung Electronics Co. (005930.KS) and SK Hynix Inc. (000660.KS) to use US technologies in their Chinese operations, posing risks to South Korea’s exports.
Read more here.
The Trump administration is pressing ahead with trade talks with its partners, even after a US appeals court ruled that the majority of President Trump's tariffs are illegal, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said Sunday.
Reuters reports:
\\"Our trading partners, they continue to work very closely with us on negotiations,\\" he said in an interview on Fox News' \\"Fox & Friends\\" program. \\"People are moving forward with their deals, regardless of what this court may say in the interim.\\"
Greer did not say which countries the United States was still in talks with, but said he had spoken with one trade minister on Saturday morning.
The ruling threatens what has become a pillar of Trump's foreign policy since starting his second term in the White House in January. He has used the levies imposed on imported goods to exert political pressure and renegotiate trade deals even as the tariffs have increased volatility in financial markets.
Read more here.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited China for the first time in seven years to hold talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The two discussed how the two countries will work to cooperate in the face of an ongoing trade war with the United States.
Bloomberg reports:
Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi held their first meeting since Donald Trump returned to power, with the longstanding Asian rivals pledging deeper cooperation as they deal with the economic fallout from the US trade war.
Modi announced the resumption of direct flights between the two countries, and said ties in the past year have stabilized after soldiers pulled back from the friction points on the border. The two met at the port city of Tianjin on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit, a security-focused bloc co-founded by China.
China and India should not let border issues define their relationship, Xi told Modi, adding that the “right choice” is to be friends. “As long as the two countries remain partners rather than rivals, and see each other as development opportunities rather than threats, China-India relations will flourish and move forward steadily,” Xi was quoted as saying by the Chinese news agency Xinhua.
Read more from Bloomberg here.
Yahoo Finance senior columnist Rick Newman writes:
Businesses have been hoping for clarity as President Trump’s trade war enters its eighth month. Instead, they’re getting more confusion and prolonged uncertainty as legal challenges upend a fundamental premise of the whole scheme. [...]
Trump has used the emergency justification to impose import taxes at a far faster pace than he did during his first term. Emergency tariffs account for 78% of the new tariff revenue importers are paying, according to the Tax Foundation. So if the Supreme Court strikes them down for good, Trump will basically have to start over as he tries to rewire the global trading system.
He also notes that the appeals court left the duties in place until October to allow the Supreme Court time to weigh in. Until then, however, it's not clear what businesses can — or should — do.
Some US importers will probably postpone shipments until then, to avoid forking over customs duties they may not have to pay later. Importers typically have to pay tariffs when they receive a shipment, regardless of whether they think they can recoup the higher cost by passing it onto their own customers. Imports have been highly erratic this year, surging and collapsing as windows open for averting Trump’s tariffs, then close.
Read more here.
Reuters reports:
China's trade representative Li Chenggang visited the United States from August 27-29, holding discussions with U.S. officials on bilateral economic and trade relations, the Chinese commerce ministry said on Saturday.
Li met with representatives from the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Department of Commerce, and Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to exchange views on the implementation of prior agreements.
Li said both sides should manage differences and expand cooperation through equal dialogue and consultation.
Read more here.
Bloomberg reports:
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi toured a chip factory in Japan’s Miyagi prefecture on Saturday, a day after he and his Japanese counterpart Shigeru Ishiba pledged deeper ties as US tariffs hit the global economy.
“We hope to work together to strengthen the semiconductor supply chain and enhance economic security,” said Ishiba, speaking to reporters after the visit. [...]
The pledge for closer ties comes as India explores a shift in its geopolitical balance and seeks to shore up support from friendly nations after relations with the US took a downturn. As part of that shift, Modi will travel to China for the first time in seven years after his trip to Japan, and is expected to meet with leader Xi Jinping.
Japan, whose key car industry has been hit hard by President Donald Trump’s tariffs, is also looking to boost trade with like-minded nations as it seeks to tap into India’s vast market and young demographic.
Read more here.
Bloomberg reports on some troubles on the US-Japan trade front:
Japan’s top trade negotiator Ryosei Akazawa abruptly canceled his trip to Washington on Thursday because there remains a gap between the two sides on the issue of rice, Nikkei reported.
Japanese officials are unhappy that a US presidential order would include plans for Japan to increase purchases of American rice and a reduction of tariffs on agricultural products, the report said Friday. Japan objects to the order that would be sent to US government agencies as some points have not been resolved, Nikkei said, citing unidentified Japanese officials.
Akazawa said on Friday that he expects to visit the US at least once more before the Trump administration issues an executive order that would formally lower tariffs on goods imported from Japan. Japanese staff are currently in the US discussing the matters with their US counterparts, he said, adding it has become clear that more administrative talks were needed.
Read more here.
The Associated Press examines what may happen from here — both on the legal front and on the broad implications if the Supreme Court does ultimately end up invalidating the duties.
So where does this leave Trump's trade agenda?
The government has argued that if Trump's tariffs are struck down, it might have to refund some of the import taxes that it’s collected, delivering a financial blow to the U.S. Treasury. Revenue from tariffs totaled $159 billion by July, more than double what it was at the same point the year before. Indeed, the Justice Department warned in a legal filing this month that revoking the tariffs could mean “financial ruin” for the United States.
It could also put Trump on shaky ground in trying to impose tariffs going forward.
“While existing trade deals may not automatically unravel, the administration could lose a pillar of its negotiating strategy, which may embolden foreign governments to resist future demands, delay implementation of prior commitments, or even seek to renegotiate terms,” Ashley Akers, senior counsel at the Holland & Knight law firm and a former Justice Department trial lawyer, said before the appeals court decision.
Trump does have alternative laws for imposing import taxes, but they would limit the speed and severity with which he could act. For instance, in its decision in May, the trade court noted that Trump retains more limited power to impose tariffs to address trade deficits under another statute, the Trade Act of 1974. But that law restricts tariffs to 15% and to just 150 days on countries with which the United States runs big trade deficits.
Read more here.
A wide swath of President Trump's tariffs were shot down by a federal appeals court on Friday, which found the administration's use of emergency economic powers to impose reciprocal tariffs on nearly every US trading partner overstepped the powers granted by that law.
The Trump administration had argued that a president can unilaterally impose wide-ranging, global tariffs by invoking a law enacted in 1977 to protect the US from international threats known as “IEEPA” — the International Economic Emergency Powers Act
IEEPA authorizes the president to “regulate” international commerce after declaring a national emergency.
Tariffs imposed by the administration under Section 232 rules, which includes categories like steel and aluminum imports, will not be impacted by this ruling.
Imports to the US surged in July, widening the US trade deficit 22.1% to $103.6 billion last month, the Census Bureau said on Friday.
Imports of goods jumped $18.6 billion to $281.5 billion, while goods exports dipped $0.1 billion to $178 billion.
The effect of the growth in imports could drag on economic growth in the third quarter.
More from Reuters:
An ebb in import flows led to a sharp contraction in the trade deficit in the second quarter, which added a record 4.95 percentage points to gross domestic product growth that period.
The economy grew at a 3.3% annualized rate last quarter. GDP contracted at a 0.5% rate in the January-March quarter, weighed down by a sharp deterioration in the trade deficit that was driven by businesses front-running imports at a record pace before President Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs kicked in.
The Atlanta Federal Reserve is currently estimating GDP will increase at a 2.2% rate in the third quarter.
Read more here.
Yahoo Finance reporter Emma Ockerman looks into the de minimis exemption, which is ending on Friday, and its effects on businesses and consumers:
Last week, the women’s shoe brand Zou Xou offered consumers a “pre-tariff” sale of 10% to 50% off, warning that prices were set to rise. Similarly, the activewear brand Girlfriend Collective said in an Aug. 21 email blast about a sale that “in nine days our prices get a little higher, but we still promise to make sustainable, high-quality clothes you can wear for years.”
The timing of the discounts hit as a loophole allowing cheaper imported packages to avoid steep levies comes to an end.
“I just framed it as an opportunity to save before the deadline,” said Katherine Theobalds, the Buenos Aires-based founder of Zou Xou. She manufactures and ships her artisanal leather shoes from Argentina, which has been hit with 10% tariffs.
The de minimis exemption allowed millions of shipments into the US each day duty-free if they were valued at or below $800.
But President Trump announced in late July that he would eliminate the policy, effective Friday. That decision, which sent direct-to-consumer companies and small businesses scrambling, subjects smaller imported parcels to tariffs moving forward, though gifts of less than $100 between individuals will not be taxed.
Read more here.
Bloomberg reports:
Caterpillar Inc. (CAT) is warning investors that it’s now expecting tariffs to have an impact of as much as $1.8 billion on the company this year, higher than its guidance in early August.
“While the company continues to take initial mitigating actions to reduce this impact, trade and tariff negotiations continue to be fluid,” Caterpillar said Thursday in a regulatory statement.
The company said it expects the net impact from incremental tariffs introduced this year to be $500 million to $600 million in the third quarter, and $1.5 billion to $1.8 billion for the full year.
Read more here.