The 150-Day Clock on Trump’s New Tariffs—And What Legal Authorities Come Next

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President Trump’s temporary import surcharge had a built-in limit: 150 days, unless Congress extended it. The surcharge expired on July 24, 2026. New import taxes under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 took effect the same day.

For an importer, that switch turns a deadline into a different question: what allows the government to keep charging a tax on the next shipment? The answer depends on the law behind the tariff, because each power has its own conditions for imposing, continuing or ending a charge.

The July deadline passed, but import duties continued

Trump’s proclamation, Imposing a Temporary Import Surcharge to Address Fundamental International Payments Problems, imposed a 10 percent surcharge for 150 days, effective February 24, 2026. Its operative schedule ran from 12:01 a.m. eastern standard time on February 24 through 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time on July 24, 2026, unless ended or modified earlier or extended by an Act of Congress. That was a deadline for this particular surcharge, rather than a date when the United States would stop collecting every import duty.

On July 23, 2026, the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) announced final Section 301 action imposing tariffs on sixty economies over what it determined was their failure to prohibit and effectively enforce bans on imports produced with forced labor. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which administers import entries, instructed importers and brokers to apply the new duties to consumption entries and warehouse withdrawals starting July 24, 2026. The successor duties cover sixty economies at rates of 10 percent to 12.5 percent, with exemptions. The legal foundation changed at the border even though a broad charge remained.

Section 301 allows the trade representative to impose duties or other import restrictions for the time the trade representative determines appropriate. The replacement therefore does not inherit Section 122’s expiration date merely because it covers imports previously subject to that surcharge.

CBP’s guidance exempts Canadian products entered free of duty under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) from the new Canadian Section 301 duty. Qualifying Mexican goods entered duty free under USMCA receive a corresponding exception from the new Mexican duty. Those exemptions must be checked against the particular duty being charged: qualifying for one exception does not establish an exception under a different statute.

Why Section 122 gives Congress a role at the deadline

Section 122 permits special import restrictions to address large and serious U.S. balance-of-payments deficits, prevent imminent significant dollar depreciation, or cooperate in correcting an international balance-of-payments disequilibrium. A balance-of-payments problem concerns international financial flows, so the legal trigger requires more than identifying an unpopular foreign trade practice. The statute caps a temporary surcharge at 15 percent in addition to existing duties and limits its duration to 150 days unless Congress extends it by an Act.

The 15 percent figure is a ceiling on this delegated power, not the operative 10 percent rate written into Trump’s original proclamation. Nor is the clock a grant of another term whenever the administration wants the same tariff to continue. An extension beyond the statutory period requires an Act of Congress. A proposed new proclamation would still have to satisfy Section 122’s own conditions; citing the section number does not settle that question.

Congress required broad and uniform product coverage, while allowing specified economy-based exceptions for unavailable domestic supply, raw materials, supply disruption and measures that would be unnecessary or ineffective. Trump’s temporary surcharge excepted articles subject to Section 232 import restrictions and Canadian or Mexican goods entered duty free under specified USMCA provisions. A broad tariff is therefore not necessarily a charge on every product from every country.

The Constitution assigns Congress the powers to regulate foreign commerce and impose duties, and courts have found no inherent presidential power to impose tariffs in peacetime. The statutes matter because they are the bridge between Congress’s tariff power and a president’s action.

For more about the law, read what Congress intended when it wrote the temporary-surcharge provision.

The border bill and the store price are different

An ad valorem import duty is a percentage of the merchandise’s value, while a specific duty is an amount per unit of weight or another quantity. The obligation to pay customs duty rests on the person or firm in whose name the import entry is filed. Paying a customs broker does not relieve an importer of liability if the broker fails to pay CBP. The government collects the border charge from the responsible importer; its later effect on a household’s purchase is a separate economic question.

In Paying More and Buying Less: 2025 Tariffs and U.S. Household Spending, revised in August 2026, Sinem Hacıoğlu Hoke and Leo Feler used household purchase records linked to tariff exposure to estimate the tariffs’ effects. They found higher retail prices and lower spending on affected goods. Those findings do not mean every product’s store price rises by the percentage printed in its tariff schedule.

An expiration can remove one component of an import bill while a replacement adds another. For a particular shipment, the useful comparison is the applicable product and country treatment under the old and new instruments, rather than two headline percentages.

The other powers come with different conditions

Section 232: a national-security finding

Under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, the Commerce Department must find that imports in particular quantities or circumstances threaten to impair national security before the president determines whether to concur and how to adjust them. Commerce must submit its investigation report within 270 days of initiation. Once Commerce reports a national-security threat, the president has 90 days to decide whether to agree and what action to take. If the president decides to adjust the imports, that action must be implemented within 15 days of the decision. The statute lets the president determine the nature and duration of the action needed to address the identified national-security threat. The investigation and finding supply the legal connection between a particular import and the response, rather than borrowing Section 122’s payments-problem justification.

On September 23, 2026, Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security published Guidance and Procedures for Implementing Tariff Adjustments for Specialty Pharmaceuticals and Associated Pharmaceutical Ingredients and Technical Corrections to the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States for Duties Imposed Under Proclamation 11020. The notice describes tariffs on certain patented pharmaceuticals and associated ingredients, with the general company effective date of September 29, 2026, different treatment for specified jurisdictions and approved onshoring agreements, and no current application to generic pharmaceuticals. This sector example illustrates why a broad surcharge’s deadline does not dispose of a separate national-security measure. The Bureau of Industry and Security’s investigation inventory also lists an anthracite-coal investigation initiated June 29, 2026. Opening an investigation is a step toward a possible response, not itself a tariff on the investigated goods.

Section 301: findings about foreign practices

Section 301 allows action when USTR determines that a foreign act, policy or practice is unreasonable or discriminatory, burdens or restricts U.S. commerce, and warrants a U.S. response. The claim is about a foreign practice and its burden on commerce, which is a different legal test from a balance-of-payments problem. For the 2026 forced-labor action, USTR invited comments on the proposed response through July 6 and held hearings from July 7 to July 9. Those deadlines have passed; they describe the process behind the action rather than an opportunity still open to readers.

An action under this authority terminates after a four-year period if neither the petitioner nor a representative of a benefiting domestic industry requests continuation during the final sixty days. A qualifying continuation request requires USTR to review effectiveness, possible alternatives and effects on the U.S. economy, including consumers. That makes the review mechanism consequential, but it does not create the same immediate sunset as the temporary surcharge.

Section 338: discrimination and possible exclusion

Section 338 of the Tariff Act addresses specified unequal charges or restrictions on U.S. products and discrimination that places U.S. commerce at a disadvantage, with a presidential finding that action serves the public interest. It permits offsetting new or additional duties up to 50 percent ad valorem or the equivalent, collected thirty days after a proclamation. The U.S. International Trade Commission describes its duty to identify discriminatory practices and inform the president with recommendations in its notice Request for Comments Regarding Implementation of 19 U.S.C. 1338(g). An offsetting duty under this provision must be tied to the discrimination found, rather than treating the percentage ceiling as an unrestricted worldwide tariff power. After an initial duties proclamation, Section 338 allows a further exclusion proclamation if the president finds that the foreign country maintained or increased the discrimination and considers exclusion consistent with U.S. interests.

Section 338 tells the president to suspend, revoke, supplement or amend a proclamation when the public interest requires it. Its continuation mechanism differs from Section 122’s fixed temporary period, so the July clock does not supply an end date for a Section 338 measure. Nor should a statutory power to impose duties be read as a guarantee that every use of it would survive a court challenge.

Canada shows how a replacement can change the kind of restriction

On July 20, 2026, the White House announced three Section 338 proclamations imposing additional 50 percent tariffs on specified Canadian goods, including covered USMCA goods. A subsequent suspension proclamation reset the effective time for those duties to 12:01 a.m. eastern time on August 22, 2026. That was a separate clock attached to separate actions, after the temporary broad surcharge’s July termination.

The September Canada response changed product coverage by removing items such as rock salt and cement and adding products including all-terrain vehicles and additional dairy products, with scope changes effective September 15, 2026. The White House said the covered Section 338 tariffs apply to USMCA goods and in addition to Section 232 tariffs. A free-trade-agreement exception under the broad surcharge or successor Section 301 guidance therefore cannot be assumed to resolve the Section 338 bill.

A further proclamation excluded specified Canadian alcoholic beverages from importation for goods imported on or after September 29, 2026. The dairy-response proclamation also excluded specified Canadian products from September 29, 2026. The motor-vehicle-response proclamation likewise excluded specified Canadian products from September 29, 2026. For covered goods imported from that date, the restriction is exclusion from the United States. Under the alcoholic-beverage proclamation, covered goods imported before September 29, 2026 but not yet entered for consumption or withdrawn from warehouse remain subject to the 50 percent duty. The dairy and motor-vehicle proclamations use the same transitional rule. The annexes defining the affected goods matter because these instruments do not ban every Canadian product.

Court rulings must be matched to the statute and the case

The Supreme Court’s consolidated opinion in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump and Trump v. V.O.S. Selections, Inc. was decided on February 20, 2026. The Supreme Court held that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) does not authorize the president to impose tariffs. That holding answered a question about emergency-powers legislation; it did not give a single answer for every tariff imposed under the other statutes.

Trump’s surcharge proclamation justified Section 122 action as necessary to address what he described as a large and serious balance-of-payments deficit. The proclamation cited a 2024 current-account deficit of 4.0 percent of gross domestic product and the loss of a primary-income surplus as part of its reasoning. These were the administration’s premises for using a particular statutory power, rather than proof by themselves that its legal conditions were satisfied.

The plaintiff states’ own complaint argued that a trade deficit is only one component of the current account, which is itself only part of the balance of payments, and that the proclamation wrongly treated those concepts as interchangeable. The Court of International Trade reported that the states also argued the statutory deficit could not arise under a floating exchange-rate system and challenged the measures’ compliance with nondiscrimination requirements. The trade court quoted the government’s reply that this interpretation would make Section 122 a nullity from the day it was enacted, while saying both sides overstated the consequences of floating exchange rates. The disagreement concerned what Congress’s financial trigger means, not simply whether the president favored tariffs.

Oregon’s official litigation tracker records that the Court of International Trade issued an opinion and judgment striking down the Section 122 tariffs on May 7, 2026. The opinion entered a permanent injunction for Washington, Burlap and Barrel, Inc., and Basic Fun, Inc. In that May 7, 2026 opinion, the court dismissed all state-plaintiff claims other than Washington’s for lack of standing. The trade court said importer plaintiffs had paid, and would continue paying absent relief, the Section 122 duties it held unlawful. In an entry dated June 11, 2026, Oregon’s tracker records a Federal Circuit stay pending appeal and says the parties were briefing the appeal. A stay pauses the operative effect of the challenged relief during an appeal; it is not the same thing as a final appellate approval of the tariff.

In its August 19, 2026 order for the master case In re Section 301 Forced Labor Cases, the Court of International Trade designated Learning Resources, Inc. et al. v. United States of America et al. as the sample case and stayed the other forced-labor cases. The plaintiff states filed a proposed supporting brief in that master case on September 11, 2026 for Learning Resources’ motion for judgment on the agency record. The sample-case plaintiffs’ September 18, 2026 filing in the master case was their Reply in Support of Motion for Judgment on the Agency Record. These are distinct proceedings, so the outcome of the IEEPA case or the expiration of Section 122 does not decide the successor challenge. The September reply asked the court to rule on the merits using the agency record; a request for judgment is not itself a ruling that approves or invalidates the duties.

What to check before treating a headline as the rate

CBP’s “CSMS # 69326983 – GUIDANCE: Section 301 Forced Labor Import Duties” provides implementation instructions for importers, brokers and filers and links to USTR’s underlying action. Check the legal notice and its product annexes, then match them to the country of origin, the import’s classification and the applicable entry date. Check the current court docket separately if the issue is a stay, a merits decision or a remedy for duties already paid.

A deadline can settle when one charge ends while leaving the next shipment subject to a different legal instrument. Tracing that instrument back to its statute turns an apparently endless tariff countdown into a more precise question: which conditions permit this particular restriction, and what event would change it?