President Donald Trump said on Saturday (February 21, 2026) that he was raising the global tariff he wants to impose to 15%, up from 10% he had announced a day earlier.

Mr. Trump said in a social media post that he was making the decision “Based on a thorough, detailed, and complete review of the ridiculous, poorly written, and extraordinarily anti-American decision on Tariffs issued yesterday,” by the U.S. Supreme Court.

After the court ruled he didn’t have the emergency power to impose many sweeping tariffs, Mr. Trump signed an executive order on Friday night (February 21, 2026) that enabled him to bypass Congress and impose a 10% tax on imports from around the world. The catch is that those tariffs would be limited to just 150 days, unless they are extended legislatively.

While the U.S. Supreme Court has struck down the reciprocal tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump on various countries, including India, several other tariffs remain in place that still have an impact on various sectors, trade analysts and export data show.

The Supreme Court on February 20 found that Mr. Trump’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose tariffs on other countries exceeded his authority as President, and so struck the tariffs down.

Impact on trade deals

Trade experts have said that this will result in countries that already have trade deals with the U.S. to re-examine them, and also called for India to do the same regarding its Interim Agreement that is yet to be signed. 

“The ruling invalidates country-specific “reciprocal tariffs” and fentanyl-linked duties imposed on imports from major trading partners,” Ajay Srivastava, founder of the think-tank Global Trade Research Initiative said. “The decision effectively renders recent trade deals initiated or concluded by the United States with the UK, Japan, the EU, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and India one-sided and useless. Partner countries may now find reasons to dump these deals.”

The Hindu has reached out to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry seeking a comment on whether India would be re-examining the Agreement. This report will be updated if and when a response is received. 

Other tariffs in play

Soon after the Supreme Court’s ruling, Mr. Trump said that he would be imposing a baseline 10% tariff on imports from other countries under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. This section and Act empowers the President to “address certain fundamental international payment problems through surcharges and other special import restrictions”, according to a factsheet issued by the White House.

Under this, the U.S. would impose a 10% ad valorem duty on imports into the U.S. for a period of 150 days starting from February 24. 

Steel and aluminium still hit

The U.S. also has other tariffs in place, such as those under Section 232 of the U.S. Trade Expansion Act of 1962.

“It would need to be seen how President Trump could still use other laws like Section 232 to enhance/keep tariffs for covered products outside of this decision,” Krishan Arora, Partner and Indirect Tax and India Investment Roadmap Leader at Grant Thornton Bharat said.

Under the Section 232 tariffs, the U.S. has imposed a 50% tariff on imports of steel and aluminium. These tariffs will remain, and data shows they could continue to have an impact on India. 

Aluminium and steel exports, taken together, form the fourth-largest group of exports for India to the U.S. Further, since electronics and pharmaceuticals are exempt from the tariffs, aluminium and steel are the second-largest export group on which tariffs are applicable, following precious and semi-precious stones. 

Exports to the U.S. of these items fell nearly 66% in December 2025, as per the latest trade data, in response to the tariffs. 

De minimis tariffs also still remain

The U.S. in August 2025 suspended the ‘de minimis’ exemptions it had granted imports of items valued at less than $800 per person per day. This meant that the import of such items, ranging from textiles to toys, cosmetics, and electronic accessories, would attract the country-specific duties based on their origin.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision on February 20, Mr. Trump issued an executive order saying that he has determined “it is still necessary and appropriate to suspend duty-free de minimis treatment… including for shipments sent through the international postal network”.  

This has an impact on India because a number of small exporters and e-commerce players used to use this de minimis route to send items to customers in the U.S. duty-free. 

Governor J.B. Pritzker sent U.S. President Donald Trump an invoice on Friday (February 21, 2026) demanding nearly $9 billion in tariff refunds for Illinois families after the Supreme Court ruled the President’s much-touted levies are illegal.

U.S. Supreme Court rejects Trump tariffs LIVE

Mr. Pritzker urged the White House to “cut the check” after justices ruled 6-3 that Mr. Trump had exceeded his authority by invoking emergency powers to impose tariffs that reshaped global trade and pushed up prices at home.

“Your tariff taxes wreaked havoc on farmers, enraged our allies and sent grocery prices through the roof,” the Democrat wrote, warning further legal action could follow if compensation was not forthcoming.

In the letter, shared with U.S. media, Mr. Pritzker demanded about $1,700 for every Illinois household — the amount Yale University experts said the average U.S. household would pay on tariffs last year.

Mr. Pritzker wasn’t alone in seeking payback — both political and literal — for widespread consumer woes.

Earlier on Friday (February 20, 2026), California Governor Gavin Newsom said the money Mr. Trump’s tariffs had raised came from U.S. voters’ pockets — and should be refunded.

“Time to pay the piper, Donald. These tariffs were nothing more than an illegal cash grab that drove up prices and hurt working families, so you could wreck longstanding alliances and extort them,” he said.

“Every dollar unlawfully taken must be refunded immediately — with interest. Cough up!”

Mr. Pritzker and Mr. Newsom are widely seen as potential Democratic contenders in the 2028 presidential race.

Whose money?

Their demands add a populist flourish to a complicated legal and economic reality.

Announced with fanfare last April, Mr. Trump’s tariffs have raised more than $130 billion from importers, with a significant proportion of that extra cost passed on to consumers through higher prices.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has expressed skepticism that ordinary Americans will see direct compensation.

The scale of potential repayments is vast. The influential Penn-Wharton Budget Model has estimated that refunds could total $175 billion, though it’s unclear who would ultimately receive the money.

Mr. Trump himself acknowledged that any refund process could take years.

That’s a harsh shift for those who may have hoped for a tariff “dividend” check after the 79-year-old Republican repeatedly said last year that millions of Americans would get “a little rebate” because “we have so much money coming in.”

In his dissent, Trump-appointed conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh noted Friday’s (February 20, 2026) ruling “says nothing today about whether, and if so how, the government should go about returning the billions of dollars that it has collected from importers.”

New York’s Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, called the Trump administration’s tariffs “an unlawful backdoor tax on hardworking families, farmers and small businesses, raising prices on everything from groceries to building materials” — though she did not demand refunds.