Trump's Plan B Tariffs Are Coming Soon—And Will Be Hard to Kill. That Could Spell More Price Hikes.

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The tariffs that roiled the economy in 2025 are getting a sequel.

The Trump administration is moving forward with a new set of tariffs to replace the sweeping import taxes he imposed last year on nearly every country in the world, which were struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in February.

The U.S. Trade Representative will begin a series of hearings Tuesday on whether 14 countries and the European Union—including the U.S.'s largest trading partners—have created "excess capacity" by subsidies and other government policies, which would authorize the administration to impose tariffs in retaliation. Last week, the USTR held similar hearings on whether to impose tariffs on 59 countries and the E.U. for failing to ban products made with forced labor.

The hearings are milestones on the path toward imposing import taxes under a different legal authority than the emergency powers that President Donald Trump used last year to set tariffs at will, frequently changing them and threatening new ones. By contrast, the new tariffs authorized under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 can only be put in place after an extensive bureaucratic process involving hearings and investigations. The new process is more predictable and may be more resilient to legal challenges than the ones the Supreme Court struck down, trade experts say.

The additional tariffs could put renewed upward pressure on prices for consumer products at a time when inflation is already heating up due to the Iran war. Economists say the tariffs eased somewhat after the Supreme Court ruling removed some of the heaviest tariffs—on Brazil and China, for example—while leaving other tariffs in place, including Section 232 taxes on specific products like cars and steel. Between the patchwork of remaining tariffs, plus the global 10% tariff Trump imposed immediately after the ruling, the overall average tariff rate paid by U.S. importers fell to 8% from 12%, according to an analysis by Oxford Economics.

Trump and administration officials have said the Section 301 process is intended to push tariffs back up to their previous levels by mid summer, just as Trump's global 10% tariff is set to expire unless extended by Congress. "We will be implementing or conducting Section 301 studies so that the tariffs could be back in place at the previous level at the beginning of July,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said last month at an event hosted by The Wall Street Journal.

If the new tariffs are like the old ones, they may have similar economic effects, including pushing up inflation and slowing job growth.

Some economists say the new tariffs will end up being lower if they are used as negotiating tools, or if the Trump administration balks at potentially stoking inflation at a time when voters are already concerned about the cost of living, according to polls.

"The Trump administration might want to avoid pursuing further unpopular inflationary policies ahead of the midterm elections," economists at Deutsche Bank led by Chief Economist Matthew Luzzetti wrote in a commentary last month.

The new tariffs could also likely face legal challenges, just like the old ones have, potentially extending the ongoing confusion and legal wrangling.

Pete Mento, a director of global trade management services at Baker Tilly, said his firm is helping clients file for around $1 billion in refunds, part of a wave of companies going to federal court to get back the money they paid for the now-illegal import duties. He predicted companies would go to court over whatever tariffs arise from the Section 301 and Section 232 processes, but that they might be harder to overturn.

The new tariffs could even outlast the Trump administration, since it may be politically unpopular to dismantle something that was framed as an anti-forced-labor measure.

"They have a feeling of permanency," Mento told Investopedia in an interview. "They have a feeling of real staying power ... I'm not sure that a new a new executive is really going to radically change the tariff situation."

The new tariffs may have a sense of stability the previous ones lacked.

"At least, we'll know the level of terrible and be able to operate within that environment," Mento said.

The tariffs have contributed to inflation staying stubbornly above the Federal Reserve's goal of a 2% annual rate, as companies have generally passed the costs along to customers, according to many economists as well as Fed officials.

They've also slowed down the economy and the job market by fueling uncertainty among business leaders about what trade policy will be in the future, causing many to delay hiring and expansion plans. More tariffs could amplify those trends.

"We have a year’s worth of economic data since Liberation Day, when President Trump announced much higher tariffs on most imported goods and countries, and the data are definitive; the tariffs have done significant damage to the economy," Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, posted on the X social media platform Monday. "The U.S. economy is resilient, but just how resilient is set to be tested."

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