US new tariff start date: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Wednesday, March 4, that President Donald Trump’s recently announced global tariff is expected to take effect later this week, increasing from the current 10 per cent rate to 15 per cent.
Bessent also predicted that by August, the rates on US tariffs would effectively return to what they were before the Supreme Court overturned the higher rates that Trump unilaterally imposed on most countries last year.
“It’s my strong belief that the tariff rates will go back to their old rate within five months,” Bessent said. “They are very slow-moving, but they are more robust,” he said of the so-called sections 301 and 232 tariffs that are planned to replace the invalidated IEEPA duties.
Last year, Trump imposed a variety of tariffs on imports from almost all countries by using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, without approval from Congress.
On February 20, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that Trump lacked the legal authority to bypass Congress by using IEEPA to impose those tariffs.
Just hours after the ruling, Trump said that he has already signed an executive order to impose a 10 per cent tariff globally, but under a different statute. The following day after the ruling, he said that the tariff will be increased to 15 per cent, “effective immediately.”
However, when the tariff actually went into effect, it remained at 10 per cent.
According to a report by Bloomberg, US stock futures erased gains after Bessent’s comment on the higher tariff, though the S&P 500 advanced after trading opened in New York.
Oil Market
The Treasury secretary also sought to minimise concerns about the oil market fallout from US, Israeli war with Iran, arguing that global crude supplies are plentiful and that the administration will take measures to bolster the energy sector, according to a report by Bloomberg.
“I would encourage everyone to look through the noise and see where we are going on the other side of this in terms of the crude markets — the crude markets are very well supplied,” Bessent said. “There are hundreds of millions of barrels on the water away from the Gulf. But more importantly, we have a series of announcements that we’re going to be making.”
He pointed to the previously announced plan for the US government to offer insurance for oil cargo ships when appropriate, and for the US Navy to provide safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz, according to a report by Bloomberg.
Bessent highlighted China’s vulnerability to any cutoff of oil shipments from the Persian Gulf, saying more than 50 per cent of its energy comes from that region.
“They’ve probably been buying 95 per cent of the Iranian crude. That’s obviously on hold right now,” he said.
