'Hundreds of billions' at stake: Trump blasts Supreme Court, again, for striking down tariffs

Trump has consistently portrayed tariffs as a cornerstone of his economic strategy, arguing they reversed what he characterised as a stagnant economy and declining US global leverage.

• Trump condemns Supreme Court for overturning his tariff policy
• He warns ruling could return billions to foreign countries, firms
• Trump hints at seeking a rehearing or new legal action on tariffs

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President Donald Trump, in the early hours of February 28, lashed out at the Supreme Court of the United States over its recent decision striking down his sweeping tariff regime, warning the ruling could hand "Hundreds of Billions of Dollars" back to foreign governments and corporations.

"The recent Decision of the United States Supreme Court concerning TARIFFS could allow for Hundreds of Billions of Dollars to be returned to Countries and Companies that have been ‘ripping off’ the United States of America for many years," Trump wrote on Truth Social. He added that, under the ruling, they could “actually continue to do so, at an even increased level.”

"I am sure that the Supreme Court did not have this in mind!" Trump said, calling the judgment "highly disappointing, to say the least," and questioning whether "a Rehearing or Readjudication of this case" was possible.

The comments came a week after the Supreme Court struck down a large swath of Trump’s tariffs that he had imposed under a law meant for national emergencies, handing the Republican president a significant legal setback.

In his 2026 State of the Union address earlier this week, delivered before a joint session of Congress, Trump described the court’s intervention as “unfortunate” but insisted most countries and corporations wanted existing trade arrangements to remain in place.

“The good news is that almost all countries and corporations want to keep the deal that they already made, knowing that the legal power that I, as President, have to make a new deal could be far worse for them,” Trump said. “And therefore, they will continue to work along the same successful path that we had negotiated before the Supreme Court’s unfortunate involvement.”

Trump has consistently portrayed tariffs as a cornerstone of his economic strategy, arguing they reversed what he characterised as a stagnant economy and declining US global leverage.

“Countries that were ripping us off for decades are now paying us hundreds of billions of dollars... And yet these countries are now happy, and so are we,” he said.

He also claimed US markets had reached historic highs under his tariff framework before the ruling. “One of the primary reasons for our country’s stunning economic turnaround, the biggest in history, where the Dow Jones broke 50,000 four years ahead of schedule and the S&P hit 7,000… were tariffs,” Trump said. “Everything was working well.”

The Supreme Court’s ruling concluded that the statute Trump relied upon did not authorise such broad trade measures, marking one of the most consequential judicial checks on presidential tariff authority in decades.