分析：亚伦·布莱克，30分钟前 / 发布于 2026年2月23日，美国东部时间下午2:00
周五，最高法院推翻其关税政策数小时后，总统唐纳德·特朗普坚称，这一裁决实际上以某种方式让他变得”更强大”。
他这是在过度补偿。他的其他潜在选择在客观上更为不利。
而他提出的替代方案——根据另一项授权实施全球15%的关税——很可能会失败，进而让他整个关税策略土崩瓦解。
这是因为他现在所依赖的法律，即1974年《贸易法》第122(a)条，其初衷是应对不同的情况。该条款并非针对贸易逆差（特朗普政府曾以此为理由实施现已被推翻的紧急关税），而是针对严重的”国际收支”逆差。
特朗普团队若要依据该授权证明全球关税的合理性，就需要提供完全不同的理由，而不是他们之前一直使用的理由。
或者，他们必须说服法官，对第122条做出一种相当新颖的解读，即贸易逆差确实属于国际收支逆差。
但无论从哪个角度看，他们过去的论点都可能反过来困扰他们。
第122条的具体内容
第122条规定，总统可单方面实施最高15%的关税，期限为150天，以应对”美国严重的国际收支逆差”。150天后，如需延长关税，需获得国会批准。
什么是国际收支逆差？这一概念较为复杂，但基本上指的是美国的收支交易记录出现失衡。
即使我们用美元支付进口，接收资金的国家最终也需要将美元回流到美国才能使用。从长远来看，国际收支应接近平衡。
因此，贸易逆差只是这一平衡中的一部分，而非全部。
特朗普团队曾暗示第122条不适用
重要的是，特朗普团队本身已承认这一区别。事实上，在去年的关税案件诉讼中，政府官员承认无法必然使用第122条授权来解决贸易逆差问题。
他们在陈述中称，第122条”在此案中并无明显适用性，因为总统宣布紧急状态时所关注的问题源于贸易逆差，而贸易逆差在概念上与国际收支逆差截然不同”。
称其”无明显适用性”并不排除在某种程度上的适用。但特朗普团队显然淡化了第122条的适用性。
这意味着，特朗普必须提出新的理由——而他之前近一年来一直声称这是为了应对贸易逆差以及许多其他并非国际收支逆差的问题。
其他困难
特朗普团队似乎可以自我矛盾，辩称贸易逆差是国际收支逆差的一种形式。事实上，其周五宣布的政策说明仍将贸易逆差作为其论点的一部分。此外，该团队过去也曾提出使用第122条来应对贸易逆差。
但无论特朗普团队之前说了什么，这一论点在法庭上都难以成立。
这是因为第122条在后续条款中单独提到了”贸易平衡盈余”，并针对这种情况提供了不同的授权。法律中分别提到”国际收支”和”贸易平衡”，这表明立法者认为两者有所区别。
此外，这里的另一个问题是，目前并不存在明确可被视为”美国严重国际收支逆差”的情况。
保守派《国家评论》发表了两篇有力的文章，认为美国并不处于这种情况。其中一篇认为美国的国际收支逆差实际上接近零。另一篇中，安德鲁·C·麦卡锡(Andrew C. McCarthy)指出，第122条制定时的情景并不适用于我们现在的现代化设置——美元不再与黄金价格挂钩，而是实行浮动汇率制。
“这些新关税比特朗普根据《国际紧急经济权力法》(IEEPA)实施的关税更加明显地违法，”麦卡锡写道，指的是刚刚被推翻的特朗普紧急关税政策。
即使是起草该法律的人，可能也会认同这一观点。
参议院财政委员会1974年的一份报告承认，在”当前情况下”，第122条”不太可能被使用”。但该小组表示，尽管如此，仍希望将其赋予总统，因为”情况可能迅速变化”。
事实上，根据国会研究服务处的数据，半个世纪以来，第122条从未被使用过。
如果特朗普的关税再次被推翻会怎样？
这些关税的期限为150天，而法律程序可能会超过这一时间。有可能法官允许这些关税按计划实施，而不是迅速临时阻止。
但特朗普至少面临其标志性经济政策再次受到法院双重谴责的风险。
如果真的发生这种情况，其后果可能更加严重。这不仅是第二次打击，还可能使他更难通过白宫提出的其他授权重新实施关税。
到那时，国会共和党人可能会对特朗普的关税策略失去耐心——尤其是考虑到许多共和党人从一开始就持怀疑态度。在选举年，这一情况尤为严重，因为关税似乎正在损害共和党人的利益。
失去的影响力
同样值得强调的是，这些关税对特朗普来说远非有利。
由于他被限制在15%的税率，无法像以前那样立即提高对个别国家的关税。周一，特朗普在最高法院裁决后威胁要对”任何想’耍花样’的国家”提高关税，但他现在已不再拥有同样的灵活性。
时间限制——以及国会几乎肯定不会在150天后延长关税的事实——意味着其他国家可能只是等待特朗普的关税到期，而不必被迫与他达成贸易协议。因此，这些关税总体规模较小，提供的影响力也较弱。
尽管存在这些麻烦的细节，特朗普周五仍声称第122条是”更强大的”，”可能是我第一次就应该走的方向”。
但考虑到未来可能出现的问题，他的团队很可能也预见到这条道路布满荆棘。
你可能会觉得特朗普只是因为这是他最后的最佳选择才尝试这样做——他希望挽救的不仅是关税政策，还有自己的面子。
Trump’s tariff troubles might not be over
Analysis by Aaron Blake, 30 min ago / PUBLISHED Feb 23, 2026, 2:00 PM ET
Hours after the Supreme Court struck down his tariff policy on Friday, President Donald Trump insisted the ruling had actually, somehow, rendered him “stronger.”
He was overcompensating. His other potential options are objectively weaker.
And his stated alternative, that he would institute a global 15% tariff under a different authority, could easily fizzle — and bring his entire tariffs gambit down with it.
That’s because the law he’s now relying upon, Section 122(a) of the Trade Act of 1974, was intended to address different situations. It’s meant not for trade deficits, which the Trump administration has cited as the justification for the president’s now-nixed emergency tariffs, but rather a severe “balance of payments” deficit.
To the extent the Trump team can justify the global tariffs under this authority, they’ll need to offer a completely different justification than they’ve been using to this point.
Or they’ll have to convince judges of a rather novel reading of Section 122 in which trade deficits are balance-of-payments deficits.
But on both counts, their past arguments could come back to haunt them.
What Section 122 says
Section 122 holds that a president can unilaterally implement tariffs of up to 15% for 150 days to deal with “large and serious United States balance-of-payments deficits.” After 150 days, congressional approval would be required to extend the tariffs.
What is a balance-of-payments deficit? It’s complicated, but it basically refers to when the record of transactions that come into and go out of the United States is out of whack.
Even when we pay US dollars for imports, the countries that receive the money need to send the dollars back to the United States in order to use them, at some point. Over time, the balance of payments should be close to zero.
So trade deficits are a piece of this equation, but they are not the equation itself.
The Trump team previously suggested Section 122 might not work
Importantly, the Trump team itself has acknowledged this distinction. Indeed, in a filing last year in the tariffs case, officials conceded that the administration couldn’t necessarily use Section 122 authority to address trade deficits.
It said that Section 122 didn’t “have any obvious application here, where the concerns the President identified in declaring an emergency arise from trade deficits, which are conceptually distinct from balance-of-payments deficits.”
Saying it didn’t have an “obvious application” doesn’t rule out some level of application. But the Trump team clearly downplayed the applicability of Section 122.
That suggests Trump would have to declare a new justification — after spending nearly a year saying this was about trade deficits and many other things that aren’t balance-of-payments deficits.
Other difficulties
The Trump team could seemingly reverse itself and argue that trade deficits are a form of a balance-of-payments deficit. Indeed, its “fact sheet” on Trump’s announcement Friday continued to cite trade deficits as part of its case. And it has also floated using Section 122 for trade deficits in the past.
But that could be a difficult argument to make in court, irrespective of what the Trump team said before.
That’s because Section 122 later refers separately to “balance-of-trade surpluses” — and offers different authorities for that scenario. The fact that it refers to “balance-of-payments” and “balance-of-trade” separately suggests the drafters of the law viewed them as distinct from one another.
And the other point here is that it’s just not at all clear we have anything that could be construed as “large and serious United States balance-of-payments deficits.”
The conservative National Review has featured a pair of compelling pieces arguing that we’re not in such a situation. One argues that our balance-of-payments deficit is actually near zero. In another, Andrew C. McCarthy argues that the scenario for which Section 122 was drafted simply doesn’t apply to our modern setup, in which the dollar is no longer anchored to the price of gold and has a floating value.
“These new tariffs are even more clearly illegal than Trump’s IEEPA tariffs,” McCarthy wrote, referring to Trump’s emergency tariffs that were just struck down.
Even those who drafted that law might agree with that argument.
A 1974 report from the Senate Finance Committee conceded that “under present circumstances,” Section 122 “is not likely to be utilized.” But the panel said it nonetheless wanted to give it to the president because “circumstances can change rapidly.”
Indeed, half a century later, Section 122 has never previously been used, according to the Congressional Research Service.
What happens if Trump’s tariffs are struck down … again
The tariffs are limited at 150 days, and the legal process could actually take longer than that. There’s a possibility that judges let these tariffs run their course, rather than move quickly to temporarily block them.
But Trump is at the very least risking a double-rebuke from the courts on his signature economic policy.
If that were to happen, it could sting even more. It would not only be a second strike, but it could also make it even more difficult to revive his tariffs using other authorities that the White House has floated.
At that point, congressional Republicans might run out of patience for Trump’s tariffs gambit — especially given many of them have been skeptical from the start. And that’s doubly so in an election year, in which tariffs appear to be hurting Republicans.
Lost leverage
It’s also worth re-emphasizing that these tariffs aren’t nearly as beneficial for Trump.
The fact that he’s limited to 15% means he can’t jack up tariffs on individual countries in an instant like he has before. Trump on Monday threatened to raise tariffs on “any Country that wants to ‘play games’” after last week’s Supreme Court decision. But he just doesn’t have the same flexibility.
The time limit — and the fact that Congress almost certainly would not extend the tariffs beyond 150 days — also means other countries could simply wait Trump out rather than feel compelled to cut trade deals with him. So these tariffs are smaller overall and also provide less leverage.
Despite those bothersome details, Trump actually claimed Friday that Section 122 was “stronger” and “probably the direction that I should have gone the first time.”
But given the potential problems ahead, it’s likely his team foresaw this being a potentially rocky road as well.
You could be forgiven for thinking Trump is just trying this because it’s the best option he has left — and that he’s hoping to salvage his pride as much as his tariffs.
