On February 20, 2026, the US Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump that President Trump had exceeded his authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) when imposing sweeping global tariffs.
- •Chief Justice Roberts was blunt: IEEPA contains no reference to tariffs or duties, and no president had ever used it this way.
- •The ruling invalidated what Trump called 'Liberation Day' — the reciprocal tariff regime that had been in force since April 2025.
- • Trump immediately invoked Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 — a different legal authority, explicitly designed for balance-of-payments emergencies — and imposed a 10% global tariff, raising it to 15% the following day.
It's not that the court checked the president. It's that the president found another door almost instantly, and that door is legally sturdier. "I have a job to do," Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
Section 122 grants the president explicit authority to impose import surcharges of up to 15% for up to 150 days without congressional approval. Unlike IEEPA, which was stretched far beyond its original scope, Section 122 was written precisely for this kind of broad tariff action. Legal challenges are expected, but the administration is on firmer ground. The 150-day clock could be extended but subject to congressional approval.
Separately, the administration has initiated Section 301 investigations into trading partners' practices — a pathway that can yield targeted, sector-specific tariffs on a longer-term basis. Sections 232 and 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 are also under active review. The architecture of American protectionism is being rebuilt on more durable legal foundations, and investors should model accordingly.
The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics recorded 116 million pieces of apparel exported, earning USD 470 Million — a 19% year-on-year increase. World bank Approximates 70% of Kenya's total textile exports are US-bound, making the American market effectively irreplaceable in the short term.
The AGOA Play
AGOA — the African Growth and Opportunity Act — has been the legal foundation for that access, granting zero-duty entry for qualifying Kenyan exports. AGOA lapsed on September 30, 2025, and was extended by one year to December 2026 after intense diplomatic lobbying. That extension is not a renewal. Without a durable bilateral arrangement or a further extension, Kenya's trade-weighted average US tariff could rise from approximately 10% to 28% — nearly triple the current rate, per UNCTAD modelling.
The International Trade Centre estimates a permanent AGOA lapse could reduce Kenyan export projections by USD 189 million by 2029, with three-quarters of that loss concentrated in apparel and textiles, directly threatening over 66,000 EPZ jobs, the majority held by women and youth.
Kenya's trade relationship with the United States has always rested on a structural vulnerability: preferential access granted unilaterally, renewable at Washington's discretion, and contingent on geopolitical goodwill that this administration has shown little interest in extending. AGOA was never a trade agreement — it was a gift, and gifts can be withdrawn.
The events of February 2026 have made this visible in a way that years of advocacy reports could not. Kenya has been building export capacity, factory infrastructure, and employment models on a foundation that was always borrowed.
The SCOTUS ruling did not create this problem. It exposed it. The question for investors is whether Nairobi treats this moment as a crisis to be managed diplomatically, or as a structural signal requiring a genuine diversification of trade architecture — toward AfCFTA, toward the EU under EPA, toward Gulf markets, and toward a bilateral arrangement with the US that replaces preference dependency with negotiated reciprocity.
The 15% tariff is not, by itself, fatal to Kenya's US trade. Kenyan exporters are comparatively better positioned than Vietnamese or Bangladeshi competitors facing steeper rates. But that relative advantage is only monetisable if Kenya moves faster than its competitors to lock in sourcing relationships — and if the government clears the logistical and regulatory friction that buyers consistently cite as a deterrent. The window is real. It will not stay open indefinitely.
