The Supreme Court handed down the most consequential trade ruling in a generation on February 20, and the industry has been processing it ever since.
The 6-3 decision struck down the bulk of President Trump’s tariff regime, ruling that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not authorize the president to impose tariffs. But the ruling did not end the tariff era. Within hours, Trump signed a proclamation imposing a new surcharge under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, ultimately landing at 15%, its legal ceiling. That levy runs 150 days through July 24. The Council on Foreign Relations noted that even without the IEEPA tariffs, U.S. consumers face an average effective tariff rate of 9.1 percent, the highest since 1946 outside of 2025 itself.
Supply Chain Moves reached out to supply chain and procurement leaders across logistics technology, sustainability, procurement intelligence, and freight operations for their read on what comes next. Their answers point to a sector stress-tested repeatedly over the past year and now confronting something harder to manage than a tariff rate: structural, open-ended uncertainty.
Stephen Dyke, Principal Solutions Consultant Manager at FourKites, works directly with shippers managing cross-border freight and argues that the ruling has not reduced complexity so much as reshuffled it. Capacity, freight availability, and delivery timelines are still being recalibrated in response to the new 15% surcharge, and the response has to be operational, not just strategic.
Tariff decisions matter, but companies cannot execute on false positives. Execution and orchestration, the areas supply chain teams can directly control, must continue seamlessly even amid uncertainty. Real-time visibility paired with automated orchestration lets teams reroute, reprioritize, and adjust plans based on verified information rather than noise. In today’s environment, that clarity and control is no longer optional. It is essential.
Pierre-François Thaler, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of EcoVadis, sees this moment as a stress test for supplier relationship management at scale. EcoVadis research finds that 72% of U.S. executives identify tariffs and trade wars as the top external supply chain risk to their business.
His warning goes beyond cost. When sudden tariff shifts force companies to rethink suppliers quickly, they often introduce new risks in the process. Fast-moving policy changes push companies into forced supplier transitions that prevent proper due diligence — and a supplier swap made to optimize landed cost in the short term can open up sustainability gaps, regulatory blind spots, or operational vulnerabilities that take far longer to identify and correct. The speed of the current policy environment, Thaler argues, is outpacing what responsible sourcing transitions actually require.
Sudhir Bhojwani, co-founder and CEO of ORO Labs:
“The ruling exposed a structural weakness inside many enterprises. When tariff rules change, procurement leaders should be able to see immediately which suppliers, contracts, and spend categories are exposed. In many organizations, that visibility is fragmented across sourcing systems, legal records, finance platforms, and compliance tools. Ongoing tariff instability is accelerating the need for procurement orchestration that connects those functions into a real-time control layer. Orchestration unifies data and workflows so leaders can quantify exposure, model financial impact, adjust contracts, and make spend decisions without waiting days to assemble information. Companies that have built this foundation are protecting margin and maintaining supply continuity. Others are still reacting after risk has already moved through the business.”
Karl Fillhouer, VP of Sales and Operations at Circle Logistics, keeps his focus on what the ruling left unanswered: what happens to the more than $130 billion already collected under IEEPA tariffs, and what months of refund litigation will mean for business planning and market confidence.
“While new mechanisms for collecting tariffs continue to emerge, the bigger issue is the prolonged economic uncertainty they create. The central question is whether any of that money will ultimately make its way back to the American consumer. Historically, when prices rise due to tariffs, they rarely fall back down at the same rate or degree.”
Fillhouer’s broader point is one echoed across the logistics community: the most significant impact may not be the tariff rate itself, but the uncertainty surrounding it. “Continued unpredictability, both domestically and internationally, risks prolonging economic disruption and dampening growth until the policy environment stabilizes.” Importers who paid IEEPA tariffs have legal grounds to seek refunds, and retailers, manufacturers, and freight intermediaries are expected to pursue those claims aggressively — generating litigation that runs for months, and more likely years.
What the Next 150 Days Look Like
The Section 122 clock started February 24, and the administration has already signaled its intention to use the window to rebuild the broader tariff framework under more durable legal authority. The Peterson Institute for International Economics has raised questions about whether the balance-of-payments rationale that Section 122 requires actually applies to the current U.S. trade position, flagging further legal challenges as likely. Treasury Secretary Bessent has named Section 232 and Section 301 as the primary vehicles for rebuilding the tariff framework, with his department estimating the alternative authorities will produce virtually unchanged tariff revenue in 2026.
For the supply chain industry, the environment for the next five months is, at best, a managed uncertainty. The 15% global surcharge is real and in effect. Refund litigation is beginning. Trading partners, including the EU, are recalibrating. And Congress, which could vote to extend Section 122 authority or legislate new tariff powers entirely, remains a wild card. The rules keep changing. The need to see clearly, respond quickly, and understand full exposure in real time has not.
