I should hope so, they've had enough time to game out a bazillion permutations.
From the New York Times, January 19:
If the Supreme Court rules against its tariffs, the Trump administration
would begin replacing them immediately, said Jamieson Greer, the United
States Trade Representative.
If
the Supreme Court strikes down President Trump’s tariffs, the Trump
administration plans to begin replacing them almost immediately with
other levies, Jamieson Greer, the United States Trade Representative,
said in an interview.
Mr. Greer, who
is Mr. Trump’s top trade negotiator, said in a Jan. 15 interview with
The New York Times that, following any adverse ruling, the
administration would “start the next day” to reestablish tariffs “to
respond to the problems the president has identified.”
Mr. Greer expressed optimism that the Supreme Court, which is currently reviewing the president’s use of an emergency law that underpins most of his tariffs,
would rule in the administration’s favor. But Mr. Greer said that he
and other advisers had given the president “a lot of different options”
to achieve his trade goals at the beginning of the administration,
meaning the president could turn to different legal authorities to
impose similar tariffs worldwide.
“The reality is the president is going to have tariffs as part of his trade policy going forward,” Mr. Greer said.
The Supreme Court has been weighing the legality of the president’s use of a 1977 law, called the International Emergency Economic Powers Act,
to issue tariffs on trading partners globally over the past year. The
court could rule in the coming weeks, potentially as soon as Tuesday, to
revoke some or all of that authority.
Alternately,
the court could decide to allow the president’s approach. In the last
year, Mr. Trump has declared numerous international emergencies to
swiftly raise and lower tariffs on trading partners for a variety of
reasons. The president has imposed tariffs to reduce trade deficits,
stop inflows of illegal drugs and address other international
situations.
On Saturday, Mr. Trump outraged the European Union by threatening
to impose tariffs on exports from seven European countries unless a
deal is made to sell Greenland, a territory of Denmark, to the United
States. Ted Murphy, an attorney at Sidley Austin, said in an emailed
response that he believed that Mr. Trump would likely rely on IEEPA, the
emergency law being reviewed by the courts, to impose those tariffs.
“I am not aware of any other trade statutes that would cover this
situation (e.g., another nation refusing to sell the United States its
sovereign territory),” Mr. Murphy wrote....
....MUCH MORE
If a Sidley bigwig can't think of another law to cover a nation refusing to sell sovereign territory, it's a pretty good bet there is no other tariff law to cover the situation where a nation refuses to sell sovereign territory.
Previously:
December 4, 2025 - "The Supreme Court’s ruling on Trump’s tariffs is looming. His Treasury chief says this is the backup plan to keep them going"
Also:
November 24 - "White House preps backup plans with Supreme Court verdict looming; US, EU officials meet"
September 1 - "What Are Trump’s Options If His Tariffs Are Ruled Unlawful?"
Also relevant, March 21 - "Will Economic Detox Lead to a Recession? Maybe Not. But a Long Deep Stock Market Rout Will (See Dotcom Bust)":
If the Trump administration achieves its goal of cutting the
projected deficit in half, and thus removing a trillion dollars in
stimulus spending—all deficits are stimulus, whether you call them that
or not—if they cut the deficit in half, a recession seems inevitable.
However,
I'm not sure the media and other political posturing on the terror and
ruin posed by recessions is even close to what actually happens across a
population of 345 million people. This is not 1873 or 1893 or 1933, the
safety nets are a bit stronger than they were in those retrograde
economic eras.
A different analog that may be more instructive is
the 18-month 1920 - 1921 recession, brutal for those unemployed but
setting the stage for the 1920's boom in the economy and in the mass
adoption of consumer technologies that 100 years later still shape
society, telephones, appliances, automobiles, radio, Hollywood etc.,
etc.
So who knows?
The other, more important point is that
the interest required to service the ever-increasing debt will destroy
both the economy and the constitutional republic if the detox does not
happen....
May 29's - Goldman Sachs: "Four tools at the Trump administration’s disposal after a U.S. court blocks tariffs"
September 2 - "Why the Supreme Court Could Uphold Trump’s Tariffs"
Paying particular attention to the dissenting opinion authored by Judge Taranto, beginning on page 62 of the Opinion.
September 9 - "Supreme Court agrees to decide the fate of Trump’s tariffs":
This could set up some ructions in the bond markets should the court
decide against the administration. In the first place the Treasury
Department will have to repay or otherwise credit the companies that
paid the tariffs in question. That could amount to somewhere between
$100 billion to $200 billion and just to make things extra-interesting
the debit could be booked in the fiscal year that ends in three weeks.
Secondly,
the lack of income from the tariffs would require the treasury to sell
some $300 billion more debt than is needed if the tariffs stand.
There are a few options*
for the administration under other tariff authorities but the day of
the Supreme Court decision could be challenging for market participants....
November 4 - "Looking to experts for how the Supreme Court will rule on tariffs? They aren't sure either.":
It doesn't really matter how the Supremes rule, tariffs of one sort
or another will be in place at the end of 2025 and the US,
Mexico, Canada trade agreement will be renegotiated early next summer.
In
the meantime our best guess is that the Court will rule against the
Administration on at least one of the points being argued, the pundits
will splash headlines about refunding the money already collected (I
think it was $32 billion last month), the deficit will be calculated to
grow, treasuries will get sold and I will be posting that "this isn't
the real market whack" but the one before the real star-spangled, bubble-bursting, all-American market panic....
November 5 - Tariffs: Today's Supreme Court Oral Arguments
And quite a few more. The search blog box, upper left, is often rewarding.
