What Replaced the Tariffs the Supreme Court Struck Down | Eye on Korea Ep. 42

The Supreme Court struck down the IEEPA tariffs on February 20, 2026, holding that the statute never authorized the President to impose them. The tariff era did not end there. It moved to other statutes. First a 10 percent Section 122 surcharge, then a Section 301 forced-labor action took effect, imposing duties of 10 to 12.5 percent on roughly sixty economies covering the overwhelming majority of U.S. imports. Korea is on that list, and Korea is also one of sixteen economies under a second Section 301 investigation into structural excess capacity in manufacturing.

Barbara Weisel spent thirteen years as Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific and served as the U.S. chief negotiator for the Trans-Pacific Partnership from its inception through its signing. Earlier at USTR she held the Korea portfolio as Deputy Assistant USTR for Bilateral Asian Affairs.

In this episode she takes up the legal durability of the authorities now carrying U.S. tariff policy, how Section 301 differs from IEEPA and Section 122 in ways that may make it harder to challenge, the widening use of Section 232 across metals, semiconductors and pharmaceuticals, and the tension between tariffing the inputs American factories need and the reshoring those tariffs are meant to produce. She also assesses whether the U.S.-China truce holds through the fall summitry, what it will take to move Korea's investment commitments from memorandum to disbursement, and what Seoul should do differently in Washington.

[This material is distributed by KEI on behalf of the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy. Additional information is available at the Department of Justice, Washington, DC.]