Trump Rebuilds Tariffs After Court Defeat as Bitcoin Slides

The Trump administration’s new global tariffs took effect just after midnight Friday, replacing a temporary 10% surcharge with permanent duties of 10% to 12.5% on 60 countries. Bitcoin slid to $64,985.16 within hours of the announcement, down 1.37% on the day, as leveraged longs absorbed most of the damage.

The tariffs are the administration’s rebuilt answer to a courtroom defeat five months old. They arrive on a bitcoin market where nearly every Trump linked headline this year has triggered the same forced selling spiral, even as spot ETF buyers keep quietly adding to the dip.

A New Tariff Wall Lands at Midnight

The new rates apply to roughly 60 economies that together account for more than 99% of U.S. trade, according to senior administration officials cited by CNBC. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative did not estimate how much revenue the tariffs will generate.

“It’s the most sweeping international labor rights action the United States has ever taken,” said a senior administration official, who added that no other country has gone this far either. The same official said the new steel and aluminum duties will not stack on top of the existing Section 232 tariffs already covering those metals for national security reasons.

The United States has had a forced labor import ban for nearly a century, and rigorously enforces it; it’s well past time for our trading partners to do the same.

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said that in the agency’s announcement of the final action, after officials held consultations with more than 45 governments under investigation. Some products will still be exempted if they cannot be grown or made domestically, or if the duty would strain U.S. supply.

The new duties replace a temporary 10% global surcharge that the administration imposed under Section 122 of the Trade Act, which was set to expire at the same midnight deadline.

How a Supreme Court Defeat Rebuilt This Regime

The path to Friday’s tariffs runs through a courtroom loss five months earlier. By the time the Supreme Court’s February 20 tariff ruling landed, the case had been argued for months over whether emergency powers covered tariffs at all.

The court ruled 6 to 3 in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not give the president authority to impose tariffs. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion. The ruling wiped out the “Liberation Day” global baseline duties and the fentanyl linked tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China.

Those voided tariffs were not small money. The Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan tax policy research group, estimated the IEEPA duties had already collected more than $160 billion and would have raised $1.4 trillion through 2035 had they survived.

The White House did not wait. Within hours it activated Section 122, a stopgap that allowed a flat 10% surcharge without Congress, but only for 150 days. That clock is what expired at midnight Friday.

1. February 20, 2026: The Supreme Court rules 6 to 3 that IEEPA does not authorize tariffs, striking down the “Liberation Day” duties.
2. February 24, 2026: IEEPA tariffs formally terminate and the administration activates the 10% Section 122 stopgap.
3. March 12, 2026: USTR opens Section 301 investigations into 60 economies over forced labor enforcement, at Trump’s direction.
4. April 28 to 29, 2026: USTR holds its first round of public hearings on the investigations.
5. June 2, 2026: USTR proposes a two tier system of 10% and 12.5% duties.
6. July 7, 2026: A second hearing follows more than 450 public comments and rebuttals.
7. July 24, 2026: Final tariffs take effect as the Section 122 stopgap expires.

Trade lawyers see the new approach as harder to unwind in court. Section 301 requires hearings, consultations and a documented factual finding, a process trade analysts at Gibson Dunn have called potentially more durable than the emergency powers claim the justices rejected, provided the agency’s record holds up.

Which Countries Pay 10% and Which Pay 12.5%

Fourteen trading partners, including Canada, the European Union, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Bangladesh and Taiwan, face the lower 10% rate because they have adopted a full or partial ban on forced labor imports. The remaining economies, roughly 46 in total, including China, Japan, India, Brazil, Vietnam and South Korea, pay the steeper 12.5% rate.

The two tier structure grew out of the proposal USTR issued in June, before hearings and further consultations refined the final list. The forced labor tariffs land on top of an already fast moving year for U.S. trade policy. A 25% tariff on most Brazilian imports took effect Wednesday, and a 50% tariff on a wide range of Canadian goods is set to begin next month.

Leveraged Traders Take the Hit Again

Bitcoin had already tested the $65,000 level earlier Thursday as U.S. Iran war tensions intensified. It briefly recovered above that mark before the tariff headline erased the bounce, and the 15 minute chart turned into a run of red candles.

Weak jobs data piled on. U.S. initial jobless claims fell by 22,000 to 187,000 in the week ending July 18, the lowest total since September 1969, a sign of labor strength that pushed traders to price out rate cut hopes.

Equities fell too. The Nasdaq Composite dropped about 2.2% to a four week low. The S&P 500 lost 1.2%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed roughly 507 points.

Oil added its own pressure. Houthi forces attacked two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea, and WTI crude jumped nearly 5% to around $91 a barrel, its highest level since early June, feeding into rising global food and fuel prices tied to the wider conflict.

Leveraged traders took the worst of it. CoinGlass data showed 62,869 traders were liquidated across crypto markets in 24 hours, with total liquidations near $162 million. Coinalyze separately put bitcoin specific liquidations at about $28.7 million, including roughly $26.2 million in long positions.

Friday’s wipeout was not an isolated event. Bitcoin has absorbed a string of headline driven liquidation spikes since spring:

• March 23 to 24: Bitcoin surged then reversed within hours after Trump claimed a five day pause on Iran strikes, a claim Tehran denied, wiping out about $415 million in leveraged positions.
• July 8: Bitcoin fell to $61,963 after Trump declared the Iran ceasefire “over,” triggering more than $400 million in liquidations.
• July 16 to 17: Bitcoin failed to hold $65,000 through repeated attempts, dragging the price to a low of $62,588 before a shallow recovery.
• July 23: Tariffs, Iran tensions and the jobless claims surprise combined to erase another $162 million in leveraged positions.

The Split Between Forced Sellers and Patient Buyers

U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs kept buying through the same stretch. The funds pulled in about $981.2 million over seven straight sessions from July 14 to July 23, according to Santiment data cited by crypto analyst Axel Adler, with BlackRock’s IBIT alone adding $319.16 million this week.

Four numbers capture the split running through Friday’s market:

• $981.2 million flowed into U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs over seven straight sessions through July 23, the strongest run in eleven weeks.
• 62,869 accounts were liquidated in 24 hours on July 23 alone, most of them long positions caught by the tariff and Iran headlines.
• $84,714 is the estimated average cost basis across the entire spot ETF cohort, meaning most of the buyers are still underwater even while adding.
• $4.76 billion in net outflows still remain for 2026 even after the recent streak.

ETF buyers redeem shares on their own schedule. Leveraged traders get closed out the instant an exchange’s margin engine calls the position, which is why the liquidation totals spike on the same days the ETF flows barely move.

The Fed and the Courts Are Next

The Federal Reserve meets July 28 to 29. Traders have priced in nearly a 40% chance of a rate move at that meeting, a sharp shift after the stronger than expected jobless claims data, with the 10 year Treasury yield climbing to 4.70%, a fresh cycle high.

Legal risk has not disappeared either. Section 301 demands a documented factual record, which is designed to hold up better in court than the emergency powers claim that failed in February, but none of the 60 economies facing the new rates has challenged it yet.

Some analysts see pending crypto market structure legislation, including the CLARITY Act’s fight over enforcement authority, as a bigger swing factor for bitcoin than any single tariff headline. Grayscale, meanwhile, has cautioned the current downturn could extend into September or October under its four year cycle model.

The Section 122 stopgap is gone as of Friday morning. What replaces it took five months to build and was engineered to survive the legal challenge that killed its predecessor.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Section 301 and why does it matter more than the old tariffs?

Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 lets the U.S. Trade Representative impose tariffs after a formal investigation into unfair trade practices, rather than through the emergency powers the Supreme Court rejected in February. The process requires hearings and a documented factual record, which trade lawyers say makes it harder to challenge than last year’s emergency declaration.

Do the new tariffs stack on top of existing steel and aluminum duties?

No. A senior administration official said the new rates will not stack on top of the Section 232 tariffs already covering steel and aluminum imports for national security reasons, so those products face one set of duties rather than two.

Why did bitcoin ETFs keep buying while the price fell?

Spot ETF purchases are not forced by price swings the way leveraged futures positions are. Investors added money on their own schedule through the July 14 to July 23 streak, even with bitcoin trading well below the roughly $84,714 average cost basis most ETF holders paid.

Which countries face the steeper 12.5% tariff rate?

The higher rate applies to roughly 46 economies the USTR determined have not adopted a forced labor import prohibition, including China, Japan, India, Brazil, Vietnam and South Korea. Fourteen economies with full or partial bans, including Canada, the European Union, Mexico and the United Kingdom, pay the lower 10% rate.

Could courts strike down the new Section 301 tariffs too?

It is possible, but legal analysts consider the process more resilient than IEEPA. Section 301 requires investigations, hearings and a documented finding, the kind of factual record the Supreme Court said the emergency powers tariffs never had.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and is not financial advice. Bitcoin and other crypto assets are highly volatile, so consult a licensed financial professional before making investment decisions. Figures are accurate as of publication on July 24, 2026.