Gold, Silver Rise as Fresh Trump Tariffs 'Chaos' Worsens 'Dismal' US Budget Deficit

GOLD and SILVER prices rose to 3-week highs on Monday as global stock markets slipped amid fresh uncertainty over US trade, tax and government deficit policy after the Supreme Court struck down President Donald Trump's flagship import tariffs late on Friday, writes Atsuko Whitehouse at BullionVault.

Having imposed and negotiated trade tariffs in 2025 with what Yale University research says was an overall effective 16.9% rate, Trump rebuked the Court's "ridiculous, poorly written, and extraordinarily anti-American decision" and announced temporary tariff rates of first 10% and then 15% at the weekend.

Rising 1.0% late on Friday after the SCOTUS decision, the spot gold price surged as much as 1.3% during Monday's early trading to hit $5176 per Troy ounce before retreating by $30.

That still put the 'safe haven' metal at its highest level since end-January's all-time record gold price spike.

The price of silver, primarily an industrial metal, meanwhile climbed as much as 3.9% to a 2-week high of $87.84 per Troy ounce, extending Friday's late 3.6% jump before giving back $1.

"With today's Supreme Court ruling affirming the illegality of President Trump's emergency tariffs, the country will now be about $2 trillion deeper in the hole," said Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), on Friday.

"We are in a dismal fiscal situation, and it just got worse."

The federal US government's budget deficit for fiscal year 2026 stood at $600 billion by the end of January, lower by 1/5th than the same point in the previous financial year thanks to higher income-tax receipts and Trump's invocation of emergency powers to impose IEEPA tariffs during his first year back in the White House.

"Tariff uncertainty returns and the USA's fiscal trajectory gets messier and uglier," says Nicky Shiels, head of metals strategy at Swiss refining and finance group MKS Pamp, pointing to the negative fiscal impact of the 'One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act', which is no longer offset by "meaningful tariff revenue" from IEEPA.

"That is positive for gold in the medium-longer term."

The Supreme Court decision also puts over $175 billion in Treasury revenue at risk of refund, according to the Penn-Wharton Budget Model at the University of Pennsylvania.

"The tariff ruling has the potential to allay concerns about inflation stemming directly from tariffs, giving the Fed more freedom to cut rates," says Blake Gwinn, head of US rate strategy at Canadian bank RBC Capital Markets.

"[But] that factor is less important to the market than the potential deficit impact and the relief the ruling provides to companies."

Data published last Friday, before the US Supreme Court decision on Trump's tariffs, showed US GDP growth slowed sharply to 1.4% annualised in Q4 2025, while core PCE inflation − the Fed's preferred measure of the cost of living − re-accelerated to 3.0% year-on-year.

Senior US officials including Trade Representative Jamieson Greer signalled over the weekend that the Supreme Court decision would not unravel agreements already negotiated.

But "Pure customs chaos on the part of the US government," says Bernd Lange, chairman of the European Parliament's trade committee, proposing that work to ratify the European Union's Turnberry Agreement struck at Trump's golf course in Scotland last summer be suspended.

"No one can make any sense of it anymore – just open questions and growing uncertainty for the EU and other US trading partners."

Gold priced in Euros and UK Pounds today rose as much as 0.9% to 3-week highs above €4376 and £3827 per Troy ounce respectively before easing back.

Copper and nickel hit 1-week highs, while crude oil rose to new 6-month highs above $72 per barrel of European benchmark Brent after military drones from Ukraine struck the Transneft pipeline's key pumping station Kaleykino, hitting supplies of Russian oil to Kremlin-friendly EU member states Hungary and Slovakia.

Trump is due to address Congress about his new trade tariffs policy on Tuesday.