Tariff tumult casts shadow over watch industry again

It’s coming up to the one year anniversary of ‘T-Day,’ when Watches & Wonders ground to a halt upon hearing the news from the White House that a tariff rate of 31% (infamously raised to 39% in the summer) would be imposed on imported goods to the States from Switzerland.

There was a hope that a lot of the melodrama and financial headaches and uncertainty of this decision had largely come to an end last November when President Trump announced that this rate would be reduced to 15%, to bring it in line with the EU.

Fast forward to February 2026, and the storyline has taken another twist.

A Supreme Court ruling last Friday (February 20th) said that Trump had been unlawful in using the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose the levies that he did last year to almost every country in the world.

The President’s response was immediate and bullish, with Trump insisting that his so-called reciprocal tariffs would not just continue — at 10% for a limited amount of time using Section 122 of 1974’s Trade Act on Saturday — but potentially increase for some countries, including the UK. 

The UK was one country that had negotiated slightly better terms than the likes of the EU and Switzerland, settling on a 10% rate. But Trump took to social media on Saturday and said that the new tariffs would be raised to 15%. No timeline was given.

The end result is more uncertainty and second-guessing, which are anathema to businesses and consumers alike. Businesses want the best deal possible (frictionless trade, ideally), but they also put a premium on being able to plan based on certain market conditions being known and predictable.

Will the UK pay the new 15%, or the previous 10% it had agreed? 

For how long will the new tariffs be in place? Section 122 allows for tariffs to be set up to 15% for a maximum of 150 days before Congress intervenes.

If the Supreme Court’s ruling holds, then will exporters to America be entitled to refunds on the unlawful taxes that they ended up paying for a lot of last year?

When there are more questions than answers, it’s the industry and the wider economy that tends to suffer.