A ruling by the US Supreme Court expected by mid-2026, which could find that US President Trump has overstepped his executive authority in imposing tariffs on national security grounds earlier in 2025, could potentially cause a resurgence of imports into the US, market insiders told SteelOrbis this week. Steel imports, they say, could surge as well this spring if current steel tariffs continue to slash imports, forcing US prices higher and thereby making imports a more attractive pricing option versus domestic production.
Following oral arguments before the US Supreme Court on Wednesday, November 5, concerning a case challenging the validity of President Trump’s authority to impose tariffs, media reports indicate that betting markets see a weak likelihood that the US president will emerge victorious in what some say are his rogue actions this year regarding international trade tariffs. If the Supreme Court finds against Trump, more than $3 trillion - as of this week - could need to be returned from US Treasury coffers to parties affected by the global trade tariffs, insiders say.
“If the Supreme Court rules that the president doesn’t have this tariff authority [over Congress], and we have to pay all the tariff proceeds back, imports will flood the market,” claimed one US East Coast steel importer, requesting anonymity during a weekly SteelOrbis steel markets call. “Hang on, because it’s going to be a wild ride,” he said.
Media reports of recent oral arguments by Chief Justice Roberts indicate he feels tariffs constitute a tax on the American people, which he says is a power of Congress. There were also questions as to whether tariffs are permissible under the 1977 International Economic Emergency Powers Act (IEEPA), which Trump claims gives him emergency tariff authority.
Trump continues to claim in interviews that tariff proceeds thus far are substantial. “Trump said this week that, if tariffs are deemed illegal by the Court under the IEEPA, the refund process could exceed $3 trillion,” the steel importer stated. “The justices were given wrong numbers about the repayment costs,” Trump said in later media reports, indicating to some that he might now realize that there is a substantial likelihood he could lose the High Court appeal.
At issue is whether Trump had authority to sidestep Congress in enacting reciprocal “blanket” tariffs under IEEPA, claiming the global fees were necessary to address “a national emergency that has developed over the trade deficit”, as Trump said. In a separate tariff-related challenge, the Section 232 steel import tariffs, which now stand at 50 percent, were upheld earlier this year in a previous litigation, and a separate appeal to the Supreme Court was denied. Trump has claimed the tariffs are necessary to control illegal immigration and stem the flow of deadly fentanyl into the US, mainly from Mexico and Canada.
And while reciprocal tariffs in many cases have been negotiated lower in meetings between Trump and global trade partners, the Section 232 steel tariffs, which Trump put in place initially in his first term and restarted this year, remain in place at record 50 percent levels, sharply reducing key imports of critical steel and steel products from the US’ key steel trading partners Canada, South Korea and Mexico. The Section 232 steel tariffs are not expected to be impacted by the Supreme Court’s current deliberations on IEEPA-related tariffs.
Recently, in reaction to record low US steel imports, US steel producers have begun to limit the amount of supply made available to even their long-time customers through the continued use of so-called supply “allocations” which aim to ration the amount of supply made available to markets as US steel imports continue to slump.
“Right now, US supply and demand are about even,” remarked the East Coast rebar importer, following the first supply-related rebar price increase announcement, he said, from US steel mills since early September. “Steel folks hate supply allocations, and the US mills are saying they are not going to go away in the near term,” he stated, adding, “Since companies can’t operate without bars, and the mills are telling people things are not going to get better, imports will likely increase for the spring, especially since import pricing is now the same or even slightly less than domestic production. If that happens, we’re likely to see flag waving and foreign fighter pricing again, since the US mills simply won’t lose market share to imports.”
Recent SteelOrbis import data supplied by the State Statistics Institute as well as other countries’ official institutions, finds imports of hot rolled coils (HRC) off sharply on a year-on-year basis. HRC imports for all of 2024 from Canada, which accounted for a total 48 percent of total US HRC imports that year, fell from 1,085,698 metric tons (mt) last year to 486, 221 mt at last report in 2025, for a 55.2 percent drop. HRC imports from South Korea, which contributed on average about 22 percent of total US HRC imports in 2024, fell from 500,204 mt last year to 244,301 mt so far this year, for a 51.2 percent drop.
Mexico, which accounted for about eight percent of total US HRC imports in 2024 at 188,534 mt, saw its slice of imports fall by nearly half to just 100,246 mt thus far up to November 2025.