Here's a tariff update that feels a bit like watching a ping-pong match. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent just went on CNBC's "Squawk Box" and said President Donald Trump's global tariff, which is currently sitting at 10%, is going up to 15% "sometime this week." That's the near-term news. But the more interesting part is what he thinks happens next.

Bessent predicted that by August, these tariff rates will be back to their original, pre-this-whole-mess levels. "It's my strong belief that the tariff rates will be back to their old rate within five months," he said. The reasoning here is legal and procedural. The substitute tariffs being used now—imposed under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974—have a built-in timer. They can only stay in place for 150 days unless Congress decides to extend them. During that window, the U.S. Trade Representative and the Commerce Department are supposed to be doing their homework, running trade studies that could justify more permanent tariffs.

Bessent argued this path, while slower, is actually more "robust" and durable. Why? Because these Section 122 tariffs have apparently already weathered over 4,000 legal challenges. The implication is that building a case through this process creates a stronger foundation than the emergency powers the Supreme Court just shot down.

Speaking of legal challenges, the whole tariff situation has been, to put it mildly, confusing. Back in February, right after the Supreme Court struck down the previous Trump tariffs (which used a different law, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act), the president announced a new 10% global tariff under Section 122. Then, literally the next day, he said it would be 15%. He also signed an Executive Order formalizing... the 10% rate. Since there was never a formal directive for the 15% rate, U.S. Customs and Border Protection decided to just go with the 10% number on all non-exempt goods starting February 24th. So, we've had announced rates, formalized rates, and enforced rates all playing musical chairs.

And the legal drama isn't over. Bessent's comments came just hours before the U.S. Court of International Trade dropped its own news: it ordered the government to start refunding potentially billions of dollars in tariffs to importers, ruling that the money was collected unlawfully. This particular lawsuit was kicked off by Atmus Filtration Technologies (ATMUS), which argued it had paid about $11 million in illegal tariffs. The court agreed.

This refund order touches on a massive pot of money—an estimated $130 to $175 billion collected under the old tariff regime. The Supreme Court's ruling that killed those tariffs didn't get into the nitty-gritty of how to give all that money back. Bessent, for his part, has previously said that despite the court losses, the administration still expects U.S. tariff revenue to be "virtually unchanged" by 2026. How that squares with writing billion-dollar refund checks is a question for another day.

So, to recap: rates are going up this week, but maybe coming down by summer. The government is being told to give back money it already collected. And everyone is trying to build a tariff structure that can actually survive in court. It's a classic case of policy whiplash, where the immediate announcement is just one move in a much longer, and legally fraught, game.