It’s unclear what legal authority President Trump has to impose the tariffs, which analysts called an “empty threat.”
Published April 8, 2026
US President Donald Trump announced the tariff threat in a social media post just hours after agreeing to a two-week cease-fire with Iran, saying all imports from countries supplying military weapons to Iran would be subject to an immediate 50% tariff, with no exceptions.
President Trump’s Truth social post on Wednesday did not specify what legal authority he would invoke to impose such tariffs, but this comes after the Supreme Court in February struck down Trump’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose broad tariffs around the world and ordered lower courts to return about $166 billion he collected in one year.
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The 1977 IEEPA Act has been used extensively for decades to support financial sanctions against Iran, Russia, and North Korea, but the court ruled that President Trump overstepped his authority by using the law to impose trade tariffs.
“Countries that supply military weapons to Iran will be subject to an immediate 50% tariff on all goods sold to the United States. There are no exclusions or exemptions! President DJT,” Trump wrote.
But Rachel Ziemba, a nonresident senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, told Al Jazeera, “After IEEPA collapsed, it became much more complicated to do that.” “There are no immediate policy tools or authorities available to the United States to do that. So the United States would need to either act in Congress or adapt other trade instruments, but there really are no national security-oriented trade instruments.”
President Trump did not mention which countries might be subject to punitive tariffs. China and Russia have supplied missiles, air defense systems and technology aimed at strengthening deterrence and have helped Iran build its military to counter pressure from the United States and Israel.
However, that support appeared limited during the US and Israeli attacks on Iran. Although the Chinese and Russian governments have recently denied providing weapons, suspicions against the Russian government continue.
Reuters previously reported that the Iranian government is considering purchasing supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles from China. Reuters reported in March that SMIC, China’s top chip maker, had sent semiconductor manufacturing tools to Iran’s military, according to two senior Trump administration officials.
“This is a China-related threat, that’s how I interpret it, and China will read it that way,” said Josh Lipsky, vice president and director of international economics at the Atlantic Council.
Drone and missile parts regularly flow from Chinese companies to Iran to avoid U.S. sanctions, but Lipsky said President Trump is unlikely to implement new tariffs in the short term. That would derail plans for a visit to Beijing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping in mid-May.
“Since the court’s ruling, U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods have fallen significantly. A 50% tariff now would be extremely costly, especially for U.S. importers and consumers,” Ziemba said.
And with a meeting between President Trump and President Xi looming, “this is kind of an empty threat, but it shows that President Trump will come back to tariffs when the time comes,” Ziemba said.
President Trump has been invoking Section 301 unfair trade practices tariffs on Chinese products since his first term, and could add tariffs related to excess industrial capacity, China’s compliance with the 2020 trade agreement, and similar pending litigation. However, these require a period of public notice before they take effect.
President Trump could also invoke Section 232 of the Cold War-era Trade Expansion Act of 1962. The law authorizes sectoral tariffs to protect strategic domestic industries for national security reasons, but any use of the law would require months of new research and public comment.
Russia is another source of weapons technology for Iran, but U.S. imports of Russian goods have declined significantly since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine and the resulting series of financial sanctions imposed on Russia.
U.S. imports from Russia, one of the only countries exempt from the “reciprocal” tariffs President Trump is currently revoking, rose 26.1% to $3.8 billion in 2025. Most of these are made up of palladium used in car catalytic converters, fertilizers and raw materials, and enriched uranium for nuclear reactors. The U.S. Department of Commerce is already moving to impose punitive duties on Russian palladium following an anti-dumping investigation.
