Trump’s ‘Hail Mary’ attempt to save his war on the world

May 12, 2026 — 11:59am

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Donald Trump’s attempts to impose a global tariff regime have been struck down twice by US courts. Will his third, and probably final, effort suffer the same fate?

Last week the US Court of International Trade deemed a 10 per cent across-the-board tariff on imports to the US, using Section 122 of the Trade Act, which relates to a balance of payments crisis that the US doesn’t have, illegal.

Those tariffs were Trump’s interim replacement for the “Liberation Day,” or “reciprocal” tariffs that Trump announced, with much fanfare, in April last year. Those were declared illegal by the US Supreme Court in February.

Between them, the two decisions by the court could see more than $US200 billion ($277 billion) of tariff revenues collected illegally having to be refunded to US importers.

The Section 122 tariffs were only ever supposed to be a holding measure, because there is a 150-day sunset clause in the legislation. They were supposed to enable the Trump administration to continue collecting tariff revenues while putting in place their permanent replacement.

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That replacement, which the administration aims to have in place by late July, is another attempt to effect a global tariff regime, this time using legislation that has held up under court challenges in the past, Section 301 of the Trade Act.

The administration turned to Section 301 reluctantly because it involves detailed investigations of specific practices considered unfair or discriminatory to US companies. It requires individual investigations and public hearings, including submissions from the affected parties and consultations with the affected country. The hearings began in Washington last week.

It’s never been used for across-the-board global tariffs. Indeed, it has been used sparingly in the 50 years it has been on the statute books, with an average of less than three Section 301 actions a year.

Now, the administration has launched investigations of 16 of its biggest trading partners’ acts, policies and practices related to........

© The Age