Some U.S. allies see higher duties under new tariffs, rivals see relief,
The Portuguese cargo ship MSC Maxine is pictured at the Port of Balboa at the entrance to the Panama Canal in Panama City on April 23, 2025. The Port of Balboa is managed by CK Hutchison Holdings, based in Hong Kong.
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The U.K., the European Union and Singapore face higher trade-weighted tariffs, while countries such as Brazil, China and India will see such levies go down after U.S. President Donald Trump said he would raise global duties to 15%.
This comes after the U.S. Supreme Court decided in a 6-3 tariff ruling that the president wrongfully invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to implement his levies.
Trump later responded by imposing a global 10% duty under Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act, which was then raised to 15%.
On a trade-weighted basis, the U.K. faces a 2.1 percentage point increase in its average tariff rate, while the EU sees a 0.8 point rise, according to analysis from Swiss-based trade watchdog Global Trade Alert. In contrast, Brazil’s rate plunges 13.6 points, and China’s drops 7.1 points.
The EU Commission said it would request “full clarity” on the ruling, noting that “a deal was a deal,” with no increases in tariffs beyond the 15% ceiling previously agreed. The 27-member bloc had agreed a trade deal with the U.S. back in August last year that would see exports to Washington capped at a 15% tariff.
Asian allies Japan and South Korea face an increase in their trade-weighted average tariff rate of 0.4 percentage points and 0.6 percentage points, respectively. Both countries had agreed to a 15% tariff on their exports to the U.S. last year.
Tariff exposure
While some experts said the Supreme Court’s decision delivers the greatest relief to countries previously hit hardest by IEEPA-linked tariffs, others told CNBC it disadvantages nations that first negotiated trade deals with the U.S.
Johannes Fritz, CEO of the St.Gallen Endowment for Prosperity through Trade and author of the GTA report, said countries like China, Mexico and Canada faced dedicated tariff orders tied to opioids and border security, on top of the reciprocal rates from April 2025. Brazil and India also faced their own separate IEEPA orders.
“The Supreme Court struck down all of these, not just the reciprocal tariffs. So the countries that had the heaviest IEEPA exposure received the greatest relief,” he explained to CNBC.
Fritz noted that the EU and other allies, whose IEEPA burden was largely limited to the reciprocal rates, saw a smaller reduction.
Countries that had negotiated a 10% “reciprocal rate,” like the U.K., as well as countries receiving the baseline 10% rate like Singapore, Australia and Saudi Arabia, will then see their trade-weighted tariff rate rise, as the IEEPA tariffs are now replaced by Section 122 duties.
However, Sarang Shidore, director of the Global South Program at the Quincy Institute, had a different view, telling CNBC “Inside India” that “those countries that were early…
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