Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNN this morning what the next steps are for President Trump’s program of tariffs:

DANA BASH, CNN: OK, so let’s talk about what is happening right now, which is the president did sign an executive order Friday night calling for that 10 percent global tariff, and then he raised it to 15 percent on Saturday. As you mentioned, he’s invoking Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 to justify these new tariffs. That’s a section of the federal law that no president has ever invoked. What does the president think will happen in the court? Or why does he think it will stand up to legal scrutiny? BESSENT: Again, this 122 authority is good for 150 days. During that time, we will do study on Section 232, which will be done by Commerce Department, Section 301, which will be done by USTR. Those tariffs remain in effect and have withstood more than 4,000 challenges since the president’s first term. So, during that time, it is very likely that those studies will result in higher 232s, higher 301s, and it will get us back to the same tariff level. We have been in touch with our foreign trading partners, and all of them want to keep the trade deals that have been set. Dana, we have had great economic results over the past year, 4.1 percent second- quarter GDP, 4.3 percent, 4.4 percent, and the third quarter, and it would have been a very strong fourth quarter if the Democrats hadn’t shut down the government to hurt the American people. BASH: On that note about the new tariffs that he put in place, you’re right that it is 150 days, and then Congress has to make it permanent or has to approve it, I should say. How do you have the votes or how do you see those votes coming to fruition, especially with a Congress that doesn’t entirely support the tariffs, at least not enough with this narrow majority? BESSENT: Again, Dana, I think you missed what I just said, is that the 122 — we will see what Congress does, but the 122 is likely a five-month bridge during which studies on Section 232 tariffs and Section 301s are done. And I’m highly — I think it’s highly likely that those tariffs will rise up and that the 122s could disappear after five months. So this is more of a bridge than a permanent facility. BASH: OK. I just want to kind of take a step back on this and really look at what one of the justices who voted against the president’s authority here — Neil Gorsuch, who, of course, the president nominated, he wrote in a concurring opinion — quote — “Americans fought the revolution in no small part because they believed that only their elected representatives, not the king, not even Parliament, possessed authority to tax them. The framers gave Congress alone access to the pockets of the people.” So you’re talking about different sections of the law, but what the Supreme Court said is that it is not the executive’s function to do these tariffs. It needs to go through Congress, that that is what the Constitution says. BESSENT: Again, Dana, that’s not correct that the — what the Supreme Court said is that the president cannot use the IEEPA, the Emergency Economic Powers Act, to do this. The president does have other authorities. And, as I said, the Section 232 tariffs and Section 301 tariffs have withstood more than 4,000 — have withstood more than 4,000 lawsuits. So it was very narrow. And it’s very interesting that the Supreme Court said that the president can’t raise one dollar of revenue with tariffs, but he can put on a full embargo. So they reaffirmed his ability to block all trade. He just cannot accept one dollar for the trade. And I will tell you, like, the tariff revenues, they have come into the Treasury. But, more importantly, the ultimate goal of tariffs is rebalancing trade and bringing back the — bringing our trade deficits into balance. We have seen our — the goods sector, the deficit with our trading partners drop by 17 percent. We have seen our bilateral deficit with China drop substantially. And we are seeing trillions of investments in factories coming back to the U.S. because of the tariffs. BASH: I take your point that the Supreme Court ruling was narrow on what’s called IEEPA, but these concurrent opinions were written, it looked like, to send a message about the balance of power and the limits on executive authority when it comes to tariffs and taxing.
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