Donald Trump's illegal tariff ruling branded a 'speed bump' by Republican: 'He has other levers!'

In a six-to-three ruling, judges on the United States' highest court ruled that the law "does not authorise the President to impose tariffs".

The decision could lead to the Trump administration having to pay back $150billion in tariff refunds.

Reacting to the ruling, Mr Swenson told GB News: "I don't think it will be that damaging. I think it's a speed bump, because there's other issues around this, and there's other levers that the president can use to impose these tariffs.

"So I'm not sure you're going to see massive refunds right away. They of course can invoke other rules and regulations in trading world, in treasury world and keep these tariffs on, at least they'll try."

Citing reaction from other industry experts, he added: "I've heard some commentary already from John Yoo, for example, who's a really well respected legal expert and an expert on the Supreme Court in the Constitution. He's actually very optimistic as well that you can use other levers.

"I saw Kevin Hassett briefly on television, the chief economist essentially for the White House, and he's saying the same thing, that this was the preferred lever originally, but it's not the only lever."

Asked by host Martin Daubney if there could be judicial "shenanigans" against the President at play with the ruling, Mr Swenson agreed: "I think it could be, because anything that the president does will be rejected by the progressive left.

"And three of those judges were automatic votes against, there was no mystery at all that the three liberal justices, two of the three are basically activists, progressive activist judges, so I'm not surprised there."

Suggesting Mr Trump should "go to Congress" or use "different mechanisms" to go against the court, Mr Swenson explained: "The lever that was used is the emergency act, and who defines what an emergency is? It wasn't really an urgent emergency.

"You can you can make the case that it was that these massive trade deficits and dependency on China and the gutting of the heartland here in America, but you can understand the argument the other way.

"So I think the president has to go to Congress and get this done or use some different mechanisms that he has in his toolkit."

As Martin asked if it is essentially "business as usual" for Mr Trump, Mr Swenson responded: "Yeah, I think that's what will happen. Because the funny thing is, now that it's almost 12 months later, these tariffs have worked.

"They've done exactly what the president said that they would do. They've brought massive amounts of revenue into the Treasury to help balance the budget, they've repositioned or reprioritised some industries, and they've created a lot of incentives for foreign direct investment.

"These tariffs have been fantastic and with no effect on inflation, as all the scaremongers on the left were saying it would be without evidence.

"We're seeing a lot of capital come into the country, so I'm real confident that most of these tariffs ultimately will stick."

In a statement, a UK Government spokesman said: "This is a matter for the US to determine but we will continue to support UK businesses as further details are announced.

"The UK enjoys the lowest reciprocal tariffs globally, and under any scenario we expect our privileged trading position with the US to continue.

"We will work with the Administration to understand how the ruling will affect tariffs for the UK and the rest of the world."

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