分析：斯蒂芬·科林森（Stephen Collinson），2小时前发布于2026年2月23日，美国东部时间上午12:00
不，总统唐纳德·特朗普并没有在字典里寻找新的“最美词汇”来取代他心爱的关税。
他一贯秉持永不接受失败的哲学，在最高法院宣布他行使紧急贸易战权力违法后，他已经开始反击。
在周二发表国情咨文演讲之前，特朗普誓言要为他第二任期内最严重的失利复仇，承诺对进口商品征收更高关税。然而，随着中期选举临近，许多共和党人更希望调整政策方向。
总统的 defiant（顽抗）给他和他的政党带来了巨大的政治风险，也给本就不平衡的经济带来了新的不确定性。这也已经为民主党人的攻击开辟了新战场。
但他仍然坚信关税将开启繁荣发展，即使更可能的结果是数百万美国选民面临更沉重的经济负担。
“最高法院表示，总统不能使用《紧急经济权力法》（IEEPA）来这样做，”财政部长斯科特·贝森特（Scott Bessent）周日告诉美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）的达娜·巴什（Dana Bash）。“总统还有其他权力。”
贝森特在《国情咨文》中表示，特朗普将通过使用其他法律作为五个月的“过渡”来加强他的关税政策，以建立一个更永久的制度。
但民主党参议员安迪·金（Andy Kim）告诉CNN的马努·拉朱（Manu Raju），他所在的政党已经在制定立法，迫使特朗普偿还消费者因关税而承受的更高成本——这是一系列可能旨在让总统难堪并为难共和党议员的措施中的第一步。
特朗普将继续推进的原因有两个主要方面。
首先，他以福音派般的热情信奉关税。他对关税的信心如此强烈，以至于忽略了任何表明关税是对消费者征税或不起作用的证据。他认为全球化削弱了工业中心地带（而他正是在那里赢得了数百万选民的支持），这证明了他自20世纪80年代以来持有的保护主义观点是正确的。
“在过去一年中，我非常有效地利用了关税，使美国再次伟大，”总统周五说道，他无视新数据显示年度贸易逆差停滞不前、制造业就业岗位减少。
特朗普拒绝让步的第二个原因是，关税是实现其最终目标——不受限制的总统权力——以及拒绝一个旨在通过分权制衡来分享政府权力的宪法体系的手段。
这一点在最高法院裁决后的周五特朗普充满火药味的新闻发布会上得到了最具揭示性的评论。当被问及为什么不与国会合作通过新关税时，他回答道：
“我不需要。我有权实施关税。”
特朗普比任何现代总统都更广泛地使用关税，其影响远远超出了经济政策的范畴。如果一个外国激怒了他，就会受到惩罚——例如巴西，因调查他的朋友前总统雅伊尔·博索纳罗（Jair Bolsonaro）涉嫌干预选举而被处以50%的关税打击。如果一位世界领导人表现出不够顺从，其国家将付出代价。例如，特朗普解释说，他在对瑞士领导人“与我们交谈的方式”表示不满后提高了关税——显然指的是前总统卡琳·凯勒-祖特（Karin Keller-Sutter）。
但未来展示这种强硬手段将更加困难。
特朗普现在计划用来维持关税的替代权力包括合规要求和更有限的权力，这可能意味着他不能根据自己的一时兴起将关税作为个人“温控器”来调节税率。
特朗普有一种直率的、交易式的世界观。他认为限制他的关税杠杆会削弱美国，使美国在他认为一直利用全球最强大经济体的对手面前处于弱势。最高法院的裁决可能会在今年与中国国家主席习近平预期举行峰会之前削弱他的贸易战。
“多年来一直占我们便宜的外国现在欣喜若狂，他们非常高兴，甚至在街上欢呼，但他们不会高兴太久——我可以向你保证，”总统周五说道。
贝森特在CNN解释说，政府将通过其他法律工具应对紧急权力的丧失。这包括根据国家安全理由实施的第232条关税，以及针对外国不公平贸易行为的第301条关税。
但贝森特回避了政府是否应该退还受更高关税影响的企业和消费者（这些实际上是一种税收）的问题。他说这“不是政府的事，而是下级法院的事”。
这在法律上目前可能站得住脚，但在政治上却岌岌可危。
“本届政府从美国家庭口袋里拿走了钱，每个家庭超过1700美元。他们应该把钱还给民众，”金告诉CNN。“我们正在制定立法，让这笔钱能够退还美国人民。”
最高法院裁决后，特朗普立即行动，根据《1974年贸易法》第122条对所有商品征收10%的全球关税，随后提高到15%。但要将此类行动延长150天以上，需要国会批准。很少有共和党议员愿意在7月中旬就一个民调显示极不受欢迎的问题进行投票。
政府的一个长期选择是使用1930年的《斯穆特-霍利法案》（Smoot-Hawley legislation）来制定新关税。但这将引发法律挑战，因为各方会认为后续的国会法案取代了这种权力。
而且，在选民已经对特朗普的经济感到不满的情况下，援引这项被指责为加剧大萧条的臭名昭著的法律可能在政治上并不明智。
特朗普已经面临了几次共和党人对关税的反抗。现在，每一次关于这个问题的投票都将更加重要。一旦初选季结束，特朗普将更少有力的手段来施压共和党中的叛逆者。更多议员可能会效仿科罗拉多州议员杰夫·赫德（Jeff Hurd）的例子，他与民主党人一起投票反对对加拿大的关税，称这些关税损害了他所在地区的选民和行业。
批评者表示，关税造成了巨大损害，却收效甚微。但美国贸易代表杰米森·格里尔（Jamieson Greer）告诉《福克斯新闻周日》，特朗普继承了一个紧急状态，并且已经改变了全球贸易格局。
“立即，我们全球所有的贸易伙伴都来到谈判桌，与我们达成市场开放协议。我们立即保护了我们的产业。所以，这正是正确的做法，”格里尔说。
民主党人正乐于见到总统的困境。
潜在的2028年总统候选人、加利福尼亚州州长加文·纽森（Gavin Newsom）提出了双重论点，既针对选民的经济担忧，也针对特朗普的性格。
“这是一场破坏性的总统任期。他正在摧毁这个经济。他的整个经济模式就是大规模驱逐移民、为亿万富翁减税和征收关税。而他的真面目已经暴露，他是个骗子，”纽森在《国情咨文》中说道。
“我谈到任性。两天前是10%，明天可能就是20%。我的意思是，这简直是疯了。他在挣扎。他是个被打蒙了的拳击手，他只是想打任何东西，一个影子。而他自己也不过是个影子。他已经退步了一两个档次。”
但特朗普不会改变。他不能改变。因为这将要求他拒绝自己关于权力、总统职位以及自身的一切信念。
“坦率地说，这应该是多年前就由总统们做的事情。他们让我们的国家被蚕食，”特朗普周五说道。
Trump won’t blink on tariffs — because he can’t
Analysis by Stephen Collinson, 2 hr ago, PUBLISHED Feb 23, 2026, 12:00 AM ET
No, President Donald Trump isn’t looking for a new “most beautiful word” in the dictionary to replace his beloved tariffs.
True to his philosophy of never accepting a defeat, he’s already battling back after the Supreme Court declared his exercise of emergency trade war powers unlawful.
Ahead of his State of the Union address on Tuesday, Trump is vowing to avenge the most damaging loss of his second term by promising even higher duties on imports. Many Republicans, however, would prefer a course correction as midterm elections loom.
The president’s defiance brings great political risks for him and his party, and new uncertainties for an uneven economy. It is also already opening a new lane for Democratic attacks.
But he’s still convinced tariffs will unlock booming prosperity, even if a likelier outcome is a heavier affordability burden on millions of American voters.
“What the Supreme Court said is that the president cannot use the IEEPA, the Emergency Economic Powers Act, to do this,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday. “The president does have other authorities.”
Bessent said on “State of the Union” that Trump will shore up his tariffs by using other laws as a five-month “bridge” to a more permanent regime.
But Democratic Sen. Andy Kim told CNN’s Manu Raju on “Inside Politics” that his party was already working on legislation to force Trump to repay consumers for higher costs inflicted by tariffs — the first of a string of likely measures aimed at embarrassing the president and making life difficult for Republican lawmakers.
Trump will press on for two main reasons.
First, he believes in tariffs with evangelical intensity. His faith in them is so intense it blanks out any evidence they are a tax on consumers or that they don’t work. He regards globalization’s gutting of industrial heartlands where he won millions of votes as vindication of protectionist views he’s held since the 1980s.
“I have very effectively utilized tariffs over the past year to make America great again,” the president said Friday, ignoring new data that shows an unmoving annual trade deficit and declining manufacturing jobs.
The second reason for Trump’s refusal to bend is that tariffs are a means to his ultimate ends of unfettered presidential authority and rejection of a constitutional system that by design shares power across government.
This was highlighted by the most revealing comment from Trump’s fulminating press conference Friday following the court’s decision, when he was asked why he didn’t just work with Congress to pass new tariffs.
“I don’t have to. I have the right to do tariffs,” he said.
Trump has used tariffs more expansively than any modern president, in a way that stretches far beyond economic policy. If a foreign nation angers him, it’s punished — as with Brazil, which got a 50% tariff slap for investigating his friend former President Jair Bolsonaro over alleged election-meddling. If a world leader shows insufficient deference, their nation pays the price. Trump has explained, for example, that he hiked tariffs on Switzerland after taking exception to how its leader “talked to us” — apparently referring to former President Karin Keller-Sutter.
But showing such muscle will be harder going forward.
Alternative powers Trump now plans to use to maintain tariffs contain compliance requirements and more limited authorities that may mean he can’t use levies as a personal thermostat to crank up heat according to his whim.
Trump has a blunt, transactional worldview. He sees curbs on his tariff leverage as weakening the US against rivals he perceives as endlessly exploiting the world’s most powerful economy. The Supreme Court ruling may undermine his trade war ahead of expected summits with Chinese leader Xi Jinping this year.
“Foreign countries that have been ripping us off for years are ecstatic, they’re so happy, and they’re dancing in the streets, but they won’t be dancing for long — that, I can assure you,” the president said Friday.
Bessent explained on CNN that the administration would respond to the loss of emergency powers with other legal instruments. This includes duties justified by national security known as Section 232 tariffs and those that target foreign countries over unfair trade practices called Section 301 tariffs.
But Bessent dodged on whether the government should refund corporations and consumers hit by higher tariffs — which are effectively a tax. He said this was “not up to the administration, it is up to the lower court.”
This may be a legally tenable position for now. But it’s politically perilous.
“This administration took money out of the pockets of American families, upwards of $1,700 per family. They should give it back,” Kim told CNN. “We’re working on legislation that would be able to have this refund back to the American people.”
Trump wasted no time after the Supreme Court decision to impose a 10% global tariff on all goods, which he later raised to 15%, using Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. But congressional approval would be required to prolong such action beyond 150 days. Few Republican lawmakers would relish a mid-July vote on an issue polls show is deeply unpopular.
One long-term option available to the administration is to use Smoot-Hawley legislation of 1930 to enact new tariffs. But this would invite legal legal challenges from parties who believe subsequent acts of Congress superseded such powers.
And it might not be politically smart to invoke a notorious law blamed for worsening the Great Depression when voters are already sour on Trump’s economy.
Already, Trump has faced several Republican revolts on tariffs. Now, each vote on the issue will matter even more. Once primary season ends, Trump will have less leverage to pressure Republican rebels. More lawmakers may follow the example of Colorado Rep. Jeff Hurd, who joined Democrats in voting against Canada tariffs, saying that they hurt voters and industry in his district.
Critics say the tariffs are doing a lot of damage and creating few benefits. But US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told “Fox News Sunday” that Trump inherited an emergency and had already transformed global trade.
“Immediately, all of our trade partners around the world came to the table to negotiate market opening deals with us. And we protected our industries right away. So, it’s exactly the right thing to do,” Greer said.
Democrats are relishing the president’s discomfort.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a potential 2028 presidential candidate, has a dual argument targeting voters’ economic concerns and Trump’s temperament.
“It’s a wrecking-ball presidency. He’s wrecking this economy. His entire economic paradigm is mass deportations, tax cuts for billionaires, and tariffs. And he’s been exposed. He’s a fraud,” Newsom said on “State of the Union.”
“I talk about petulance. It was 10% two days ago, maybe 20% tomorrow. I mean, this is madness. He’s flailing. He’s a punch-drunk boxer. He’s just trying to hit anything, a shadow. And he’s a shadow of himself. He’s lost a step or two.”
But Trump won’t change. He can’t. To do so would require him to reject everything he believes about power, the presidency and himself.
“Frankly, this should have been done by presidents many years ago. They allowed our country to be eaten alive,” Trump said Friday.