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WASHINGTON – Businesses and consumers hoping the Supreme Court will soon do away with President Donald Trump’s massive, 12-figure tax increase on imports by striking down his β€œemergency” tariffs are likely to be disappointed, with administration officials already laying the groundwork to replace them with others.

β€œThat can be done almost immediately,” said Clark Packard, a trade researcher with the Cato Institute.

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After returning to office a year ago, Trump quickly jacked up existing tariffs on China, implemented and expanded ones on steel, aluminum and automobiles and then created a novel, never-before-tried import tax based on the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act to hit goods from every country in the world.

The result was a quintupling of the overall average tariff rate, which had been about 2.2% when he took office, and a total tax increase of $181 billion. That figure dwarfs the tax increases under President Barack Obama and ranks as the 13th biggest tax hike since before World War II.

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