Yesterday, I told you about the first crisis converging on the American economy: a potential military strike on Iran that could send oil prices to $100 or beyond.
Today, I need to tell you about the second one. And frankly, this one might be worse – because while the Iran situation could still be avoided, what happened on Friday is already done.
The Supreme Court just blew a hole in President Trump’s trade war. And his response was to double down.
Here’s what happened, in plain English.
On Friday morning, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that Trump exceeded his authority when he used a law called IEEPA – the International Emergency Economic Powers Act – to impose sweeping tariffs on virtually every country on Earth.
The ruling was blunt. The majority wrote that IEEPA “does not authorize the President to impose tariffs.” Full stop. Two of the justices who voted against him – Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett – were nominated by Trump himself.
His response? “I think their decision was terrible. I think it’s an embarrassment to their families.”
And then, Friday evening, he signed a brand-new executive order imposing a fresh 10% tariff on all global imports – effective almost immediately.
Think about that. Within hours of the Supreme Court telling him he couldn’t do something, he found another way to do it anyway.
Now, here’s why this matters to your wallet.
The new tariffs are being imposed under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. There’s a catch: they expire after 150 days unless Congress approves an extension.
When reporters asked Trump about that time limit and the need for congressional buy-in, he said: “We have the right to do pretty much what we want to do.”
Let me be direct with you. Whether you support tariffs or oppose them – and reasonable people disagree – what you cannot do is ignore their economic impact.
A 10% tariff on all global imports is, effectively, a 10% tax on everything America buys from the rest of the world. And America buys a lot from the rest of the world. In 2025, the U.S. trade deficit totaled $901 billion. That’s $901 billion worth of goods that just got 10% more expensive.
Who pays that? You do. The consumer always pays.
But the tariff story is actually more complicated – and more dangerous – than the headlines suggest.
Here’s what most people are missing.
Before Friday’s Supreme Court ruling, the U.S. had a complex web of tariffs in place – different rates for different countries, negotiated as part of ongoing trade deals. The European Union, for example, had agreed to a 15% tariff as part of its deal with the Trump administration. China faced layered tariffs totaling much more.
The Supreme Court ruling didn’t just strike down one tariff. It struck down the legal basis for the entire framework. All the IEEPA-based tariffs – gone. The negotiated deals built on that authority – thrown into legal limbo.
The new 10% global tariff is a blunt instrument replacing a surgical one. It’s a flat rate applied to every country equally, regardless of whether they were playing fair, cheating, or somewhere in between.
For some countries – like China, which now faces a total rate of 35% instead of its previous layered duties – this is actually a reduction. For others – like the EU, which went from a negotiated 15% to 10% – it’s a temporary reprieve.
But here’s the real problem: the White House has already signaled that as it “works through additional legal tariff pathways,” the rates on individual countries “may snap back to their higher levels.”
In other words, this is a 150-day window of maximum uncertainty. No business in America – from the smallest furniture maker to the largest manufacturer – knows what their input costs will be six months from now.
And that uncertainty is poison for the economy.
You don’t have to take my word for it. Look at what businesses are actually doing.
Small furniture retailers – an industry that imports heavily – told CNBC they face “an existential threat” from tariff uncertainty. Not from the tariffs themselves, necessarily, but from the inability to plan. When you don’t know what your costs will be next quarter, you don’t hire. You don’t invest. You don’t expand. You freeze.
Multiply that across every import-dependent industry in America, and you start to see the real cost of this trade war chaos.
It’s not just the tariff rate. It’s the unpredictability.
Now, here’s where yesterday’s Iran crisis and today’s tariff crisis start to converge.
If you’re a business owner importing goods from overseas, you’re already dealing with a 10% cost increase as of this week. Now add the possibility of $90 or $100 oil. Your shipping costs just doubled. Your energy costs are spiking. And your customers – squeezed by higher prices on everything from groceries to electronics – are spending less.
This is a textbook recipe for stagflation: stagnant growth plus rising prices. It’s the economic scenario that keeps Federal Reserve officials awake at night, because there’s no good policy response. If you raise rates to fight inflation, you crush growth. If you cut rates to boost growth, you fuel inflation.
The last time America experienced serious stagflation was the 1970s. It lasted nearly a decade. The stock market, adjusted for inflation, lost more than 60% of its value.
I’m not saying that’s where we’re headed. But I am saying the conditions are assembling. And most people aren’t paying attention because they’re too busy arguing about whether tariffs are “good” or “bad” in the abstract.
The abstraction is over. The tariffs are here. The oil shock is building. And tomorrow, I’m going to show you the third crisis – the one that most Americans have never even heard of, but that the Pentagon considers an existential threat to national security.
It involves China, a handful of obscure metals, and a chokehold that makes the Strait of Hormuz look like a minor inconvenience.
Porter Stansberry predicted this exact convergence of political, economic, and geopolitical forces in his “1776 Moment” research. His framework for understanding how tariffs, military conflict, and monetary chaos interact is the most comprehensive I’ve seen – and it comes with specific investment positioning.
Tomorrow: Part 3 – “China’s Secret Weapon: The Metals You’ve Never Heard Of That Control Everything”
Tom Anderson is the editor of Wall Street Watchdogs. This is Part 2 of an emergency four-part series on the crises converging on the American economy.
P.S. If you think the tariff chaos is temporary, consider this: the Section 122 authority Trump is using expires in 150 days. After that, either Congress extends it – unlikely without a bruising political fight – or the administration finds yet another legal pathway. Either way, the uncertainty continues. And in markets, uncertainty has a price. You’re already paying it. Porter’s team has identified the specific sectors and companies positioned to benefit from trade war chaos – get access here.
