🥛 What’s going on with tariffs? 📦

GM. This is Milk Road Macro, where “tariffs got struck down” lasted about as long as your motivation on a Monday morning.

Here’s what we’ve got for you today:

✍️ Everything you need to know about what’s going on with tariffs.
🎙️ The Milk Road Macro Show: The Triple Bubble About to Burst: Are We Sitting on a Financial “Time Bomb”? w/ Michael Pento.
🍪 Tensions between the U.S. and Iran are still high.

Summ (formerly Crypto Tax Calculator) is a tax software built specifically for crypto. Get started with Summ with a 20% discount.

Prices as of 10:10 a.m. ET.

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT WHAT’S GOING ON WITH TARIFFS

You might have thought tariffs were old news.

But they’re back in the headlines.

It’s the Return of the Tariffs.

On Friday, some of Trump’s global tariffs were struck down by a court ruling.

But then, the President immediately replaced those old tariffs with new tariffs…

So what in the world is going on?

Has anything actually changed?

And what happens next?

Let’s take a look…

So what’s the latest on tariffs?

For several months, the Supreme Court had been deliberating whether some of Trump’s tariffs were put in place “illegally”.

This involves tariffs that were imposed under IEEPA (International Emergency Economic Powers Act).

This includes so-called “reciprocal” tariffs, as well as tariffs applied to Canada, China, Mexico, and other countries under separate emergency declarations.

And on Friday, the Supreme Court struck down the IEEPA tariffs.

The U.S. has collected roughly $133B through IEEPA tariffs (orange and yellow below), around 50% of the $271B tariff total.

Source: Bloomberg

However, this wasn’t the end of the road.

As I’ve previously highlighted - the Trump administration can just replace the IEEPA tariffs with “new” like-for-like tariffs under a different statute.

And that’s exactly what happened, with Trump quickly announcing a 10% “global tariff” under Section 122 shortly after the court ruling, signing an executive order on Friday.

He then threatened to raise that to 15% a day later - this hasn’t come into effect yet, but is expected to.

Section 122 only grants temporary powers, so this surcharge will remain in place until late July, and will likely then be followed by longer-lasting and potentially higher tariffs under Section 301.

THE SOLUTION TO CRYPTO TAXES

Tax season is right around the corner.

And if crypto taxes are already stressing you out, meet Summ.

Summ is a tax software built specifically for crypto.

Why we like it:

3,500+ exchanges, wallets and crypto projects (with DeFi, NFT, staking and airdrop support)
Direct TurboTax integration
Official tax partner of Coinbase and Metamask
Helps sanity-check your new 1099-DA form/s.

The best part? You can get 20% OFF Summ for the first year.

Stop doing your crypto taxes the hard way.

Get started with Summ with a 20% discount.

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT WHAT’S GOING ON WITH TARIFFS (P2)

So has anything actually changed?

At the end of the day - little has changed with the overall effective tariff rate from the American side, despite the court ruling.

The effective tariff rate was 13.6% before the ruling, and this would fall slightly to roughly 12% under the new Section 122 measures.

There may be changes in the tariff rates applied to different countries - with winners and losers here - but the overall effective tariff rate for the U.S. will remain more or less the same.

However, tariffs under Section 122 are limited under law to 15%, which creates some near-term certainty as tariff rates cannot rise further without taking more administratively involved steps under other laws like Section 301.

So basically, “IEEPA style” tariffs are here to stay for now, just under a different statute - and little has changed from an overall American perspective.

Goldman Sachs also estimates that the negative effects of tariffs on the U.S. economy have largely “passed through” already.

Tariffs were a meaningful drag on GDP growth in 2025 - but now they likely have much less of an impact.

As I highlighted in a recent PRO report - the first half of 2026 will see a fiscal impulse boost to GDP from Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill”, all else being equal, with negative tariff effects fading away.

Source: Goldman Sachs

So, what happens next?

Now, two key questions remain.

The first question surrounds whether the Trump administration will be forced to refund some or all of the $133B in tariff revenues it had collected under IEEPA.

And how would this work?

The Supreme Court didn’t dictate whether refunds would have to be paid.

This will likely result in prolonged uncertainty as the question of refunds will be left to the lower courts.

Supreme Justice Kavanaugh reiterated that any refund process "is likely to be a mess”.

If there are refunds, they will likely be granted to corporations, because it would likely be painstakingly difficult, verging on practically impossible, to refund individual consumers.

This would probably not be popular politically.

But it would effectively be economic stimulus, pushing “new money” back into the economy through businesses.

Call it the 2026 Trump Tariff Refund Stimulus (for corporations).

And there’s also the question of whether other countries will now revoke or alter trade deals recently made with the U.S, or halt ongoing negotiations.

The EU has already proposed freezing its trade deal until the Trump administration clarifies its policy.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said “nothing is off the table” if the U.S. reneges on the 10% tariff deal it struck with the U.K. last year.

However, writing in the Financial Times, senior White House counselor for Trade Peter Navarro said the court ruling “will not stop tariffs”, and “any country that believes the ruling strengthens its hand, or allows it to walk away from the bargaining table, is misreading the moment”.

Wrapping up

Because very little has actually changed with the overall tariff landscape - these developments don’t really mean a whole lot for asset markets.

There may be some country-specific moves as the new tariff landscape becomes more clear and international winners and losers surface.

But most asset markets shrugged their shoulders over the developments.

However, a number of questions remain.

Will there be refunds?

Who will receive the refunds?

And will other countries now react by attempting to refute or change recently-signed trade deals?

It’s now a messy situation…

TRIPLE BUBBLE TIME BOMB 💣

In today’s episode, we sat down with Michael Pento to unpack his claim that the U.S. economy rests on three bubbles in equities, housing, and credit, fueled by prolonged Fed intervention. He explains why this setup is fragile, and what could force a painful reset.

Here’s what you’ll hear:

His 5-sector framework using 3-month shifts in inflation and growth, with the market in Sector 3.
Red flags he cites: extreme equity metrics, record home price-to-income, and opaque private credit.
His portfolio posture, key signals he watches, and why he is skeptical of crypto in a deflation shock.

Tune in and see for yourself 👇️