Art Trade Adjusting After US Supreme Court Struck Down Trump's Extreme Tariffs The Art Newspaper International Art News And Events

For dealers moving objects across borders, the problem is no longer simply the tariff rate. It is the instability around it. After the Supreme Court struck down President Donald Trump's unilateral tariffs on February 20 as unconstitutional, the art and antiques trade briefly had reason to expect clarity. Instead, Trump imposed new tariffs of up to 15% that same day under a different emergency powers law, and the market was left to absorb another round of confusion.

Those new levies are temporary unless Congress extends them after 150 days, but they have already prompted fresh legal challenges. Attorneys general in 22 states have filed suit, along with the governors of Kentucky and Pennsylvania. Then, on March 4, a federal judge in New York ruled that companies that paid the tariffs later struck down by the Supreme Court are due refunds. For dealers, the result is not certainty but a moving target.

Pierre Valentin, a London-based lawyer who was in-house counsel at Sotheby's in the mid-1990s, said the atmosphere around tariffs feels like a market under strain. Millicent Creech, an antiques dealer in Memphis, Tennessee, said the Supreme Court ruling briefly lifted nearly a year of tension before the new tariff regime quickly reversed that relief. Her concern is practical as much as legal: sourcing, shipping, and the ability to make a margin on imported material.

The exemptions are part of the confusion. Informational materials, including most fine art, rare coins, stamps, scientific and antiquarian collectables, and antiques over 100 years old, remain exempt. Decorative art objects, however, including antique furniture, are not exempt from either set of tariffs. That distinction matters for dealers who work in objects rather than paintings, and for those whose inventory depends on transatlantic sourcing.

Creech said she recently tried to buy an 18th-century British chair in the UK, only to find that shipping quotes had become prohibitive. One carrier would not move furniture at all; another quoted £1,000 for a single side chair valued at under £200, before tariffs and additional fees. The economics, she said, left no room for profit.

Some dealers are responding by narrowing their search to material already in the United States. Clinton Howell, a New York-based antiques dealer, said that approach has allowed him to avoid the problem for now. Others, including Steven J. Chait of Ralph M. Chait Galleries, are waiting to see whether the final tariff rate settles at 10% or 15% rather than the higher levels that have circulated in recent months.

The National Antique and Art Dealers Association of America is also preparing to shape its advocacy as the picture becomes clearer. For now, the trade is operating in a climate where shipping costs, fuel charges, and legal uncertainty are as consequential as the tariff itself.

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