The Trump administration is quietly adjusting its signature tariff policy.

According to previous news reports, The U.S. Supreme Court announced on September 9 that it will consider the legitimacy of most of the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration, scheduled for a verbal debate in the first week of November.

Before the hearing, according to statistics, the Trump administration had recently waived tariffs on dozens of commodities and proposed tariff exemption plans for hundreds of commodities in trade agreement negotiations with various countries.

At the same time, it can be seen that the Trump administration is also expanding the scope of tariffs according to Article 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, and recently included heavy trucks, medicines and furniture.

Several experts interviewed by First Financial News said the move was aimed at circumventing the legal risk posed by the Supreme Court's possible veto of its so-called "reciprocal tariffs" policy: if the Supreme Court ruled against the government, the Trump administration could be forced to refund a large number of tariffs already imposed.

Deputy dean of the University of Durham Law School, professor of transnational law and co-director of the Institute for Global Policy Studies, DuMind told the first financial journalist that if the Supreme Court of the United States accepted the trial to judge the Trump administration's defeat, the tariffs already imposed will be reimbursed, and this is still the case when the businessman did not ask the US government to compensate for other losses.

The Trump administration is being accused of quietly adjusting its iconic tariff policy

The scope of exemptions has been significantly expanded

In recent weeks, the Trump administration has exempted dozens of products from its so-called ¡°peer-to-peer tariffs¡± and said hundreds of products from agricultural products to aircraft parts would be exempted when countries reach a trade deal with the United States.

According to reports, the people familiar with the matter said that the exemption of tariffs on more products reflects the growing sentiment of government officials that the United States should reduce taxes on goods not produced in China. Everett Eissenstat, deputy director of the National Economic Council during Trump's first term, said that this idea "gradually formed" within the administration. "People must have realized it."

According to sources informed, the Trump administration¡¯s shift on the so-called ¡°reciprocal tariffs¡± reflect Trump¡¯s desire to hedge after the courts overthrew the tariffs he has widely imposed.

Specifically, last month, the Trump administration implemented new exemptions for products ranging from gold to LED lights and certain minerals, chemicals and metal products through a list called "Annex II", which contains many products that have been or will be affected by the Section 232 tax.

The First Financial reporter reviewed the relevant U.S. customs regulations and also saw the exemptions listed in the Annex 2 list.

The picture shows a screenshot of related attachments

The Trump administration also foreshadowed hundreds of possible exemptions in the future: In an executive order, the Trump administration gave a list of products that could enjoy zero tariffs under trade agreements with foreign countries that the Trump team is negotiating.

The list, known as "Annex III," targets "products that cannot be grown, mined or naturally produced in the United States," such as "certain agricultural products; aircraft and aircraft parts, and generic items for pharmaceutical purposes," the executive order said.

In addition, the executive order issued by the Trump administration in September also gave the U.S. Department of Commerce and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) new powers to grant tariff exemptions on their own without Trump personally issuing an executive order to enforce these new exemptions.

A White House official said that this move will help simplify tariff policy, so that the government does not have to issue executive orders for every exemption when implementing more than a dozen trade agreements announced by Trump or reaching new agreements.

For months, some U.S. government officials headed by Commerce Secretary Lutnik have insisted that there would be no exemptions or exceptions to the so-called ¡°reciprocal tariffs,¡± but recently he has also openly softened his stance.

According to estimates from the Yale Budget Laboratory, all tariffs introduced by the Trump administration in 2025 as of October will cause price levels to rise by 1.7% in the short term, equivalent to an average US household income loss of $2,400 in 2025.

In terms of the impact on commodity prices, the impact of tariffs in 2025 on leather products is severe, with U.S. consumers facing a short-term price rise of 36% and clothing price rise of 34%.

The Consumer Brands Association, which represents major food manufacturers, previously sent a letter to the Trump administration urging officials to grant exemptions for commodities such as coffee, oats, cocoa, spices, tropical fruits and tin-rolled steel used to make food cans.

In May, confectionery giant Hershey said it was "negotiating with the U.S. government" to seek exemptions for cocoa. Cocoa tariffs have exacerbated the challenges facing the Pennsylvania-based chocolate maker, which has struggled to cope with high prices for core raw materials. The company said it was taking all possible measures to advocate a change in cocoa tariffs.

Legal Strategy Turns to Section 232

While granting exemptions to so-called ¡°reciprocal tariffs¡± on goods, the Trump team is expanding its tariff measures based on a more mature legal basis: Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962.

Trump is accused of frequently using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (data map)

Recently, the Trump administration announced its latest action under Section 232, which will impose a 25% tariff on trucks and their parts and a 10% tariff on buses, effective November 1. As part of the action, the Trump administration has also expanded a tariff relief program for automakers, allowing them to apply for credits to partially offset the cost of tariffs on car and truck parts, with an extension from 2027 to 2030.

Some of Trump's trade protectionist allies say the increase in so-called "Section 232" tariffs will ultimately more effectively push manufacturing back to the United States.

"There is no point in imposing tariffs on products that the United States has no capacity to produce," said Nick Iacovella, executive vice president of the Alliance for a Prosperous America, a protectionist group that provides trade advice to the U.S. government."Section 232 is the most effective tool."

Du Ming explained to reporters that the tariffs involved in the lawsuit in the Supreme Court of the United States include the 10% "benchmark tariff" imposed by Trump on the whole world by invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA), the higher tariff imposed on trading partners who have not reached a trade agreement with the United States, and the so-called "fentanyl tariff". Previous judgments have shown that the courts of first and second instance have a negative attitude towards whether the authorization of this law to the president is so great.

"There are some powers that need to be exercised by the U.S. Congress rather than the U.S. president, and no president has used IEEPA as frequently before," he explained, but Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 gives the president more powerful and difficult to challenge when it comes to trade.

In a recent interview with reporters, Mr. Zhang also said that taking the steel and aluminum tariffs from 25% to 50% as an example, "Trump can arbitrarily seek reasons, such as the current measures are insufficient to protect national security, can modify the tax rate, and in the expansion of the scope of the same principle."

For example, in the previous 232 investigation,"the United States focused on derivative raw materials and derivatives. The investigation not only targeted the product itself, but also adopted 232 measures on derivatives. Taking derivatives of steel and aluminum products as an example, major products such as washing machines can be included." He told reporters that by expanding the scope from product derivatives and even upstream and downstream products, the scope of expansion will be wider.