00:00Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 is quite specific.
00:04It enables the president to impose tariffs to deal with balance of payment deficits.
00:10But it has a very strict time limit of 150 days.
00:13And after those 150 days, which expire in July, he would have to go to Congress to get approval.
00:20And otherwise, he will have to use other tariff authorities in order to continue his tariff agenda.
00:29Well, if we go down the list that is on screen at the moment, what about Section 338 of the
00:351930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act?
00:38From your legal perspective, Janet, would that stand up legally in 2026?
00:46So, Section 338 is a provision that has never previously been used to impose tariffs.
00:52It does allow the president on a finding that another country's trade measures discriminate against U.S. trade to actually
01:02impose tariffs of up to 50 percent on that country.
01:06It is an unused provision, which means that it is possible that if he were to implement this and impose
01:13tariffs using this provision, that we would see yet another legal challenge to his tariffs.
01:19Some of the other authorities that you had on your list are tariffs that are more tried and tested.
01:25So, for example, Section 232 on the sectoral tariffs or Section 301, which really deals with unfair trade practices.
01:33These provisions have been used by President Trump both in his first term and also in this second term in
01:40order to impose tariffs.
01:41And the administration, various officials have already indicated that we're likely to see either an expansion of existing investigations or
01:51new investigations being launched.
01:53And we were just discussing with our reporter, Laura Davison, that the U.K. seems to be one of the
01:59biggest losers here from all these tariff changes over the weekend.
02:03What do you see as the chance that President Trump would grant an exemption to the U.K. from this
02:07new 15 percent tariff?
02:11I think one of the things to keep in mind about this new 15 percent tariff is that we haven't
02:15yet seen how the administration is going to implement it.
02:19So on Friday night, the White House issued a proclamation in relation to those 10 percent tariffs.
02:25And then yesterday morning, on Saturday morning, President Trump then said on social media that they are going to increase
02:33to 15 percent.
02:34So, you know, there is a bit of waiting and seeing here what happens when that 15 percent tariff is
02:41actually formally implemented.
02:42And we will see at that point whether there are any special provisions for countries such as the U.K.
02:48or Australia,
02:49which actually have negotiated lower rates as part of their trade agreements with the United States.
02:55So I think there is a question around what comes next when we actually see that piece of, you know,
03:02that particular rate being implemented here.
03:05And the Supreme Court didn't offer much clarity on refunds.
03:08But, of course, that is a massive question when it comes to U.S. businesses, the net economic impact of
03:16the Supreme Court ruling.
03:17What do you expect refunds? How do you expect refunds to be handled?
03:23So with one hundred and thirty billion dollars at stake and maybe even more than that at this point,
03:29it's a really important question for importers who have paid IEPA tariffs over, you know, the past almost 12 months.
03:38The court, as you say, was silent on this issue.
03:42And so the likelihood is that this issue will go back to the lower court, the U.S. Court of
03:46International Trade,
03:47to determine whether these refunds are available and if so, the really important questions of how and when they will
03:55become available.
03:56Hundreds of companies have already filed claims before the Court of International Trade seeking refunds.
04:04Those cases are all suspended pending the Supreme Court's decision.
04:08So now we'll wait to see what the Court of International Trade does with those,
04:12whether it establishes some form of consolidated procedure in order to navigate it.
04:17The other possibility is that either Congress or the administration could actually put in place some form of administrative mechanism
04:25for dealing with the millions of tariff entries that have been made in relation to IEPA tariffs.
04:32But so far, the indications from the administration are that there may be litigation before we get to that point.
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