CFR: Trump's Tariffs Are An Unconstitutional Power Grab

[Montauk6]

Declaring a national emergency to exact concessions is a ploy to seize authority.
Article by Inu Manak, Author
Originally published at Foreign Policy
February 14, 2025 11:12 am (EST)

After announcing sweeping new tariffs on the United States’ top three trading partners, U.S. President Donald Trump seems to have agreed to a 30-day pause on any new duties on Canada and Mexico while leaving those on China in place. The final outcome is still uncertain, and the drama that unfolded over the last week should not distract from the bigger picture: With his decrees on trade, Trump is making an unconstitutional power grab by using the declaration of a national emergency to grant himself authority he does not have. Congress, whose constitutional powers to regulate trade Trump has usurped, should act swiftly to retain its authority and bring back stability to U.S. trade policy.

In announcing the tariffs, Trump invoked the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which gives a U.S. president sweeping powers to regulate the economy during wartime or another emergency caused by a foreign threat. The law essentially grants a president extraordinary economic powers “to deal with any unusual and extraordinary threat” if he “declares a national emergency with respect to such threat.” The White House outlined its view of the current threat in Proclamation 10886, which on Jan. 20 declared a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border, supposedly “overrun by cartels, criminal gangs, known terrorists, human traffickers, smugglers, unvetted military-age males from foreign adversaries, and illicit narcotics that harm Americans, including America.”

Trump expanded the emergency beyond the southern border to also cover “the public health crisis of deaths due to the use of fentanyl and other illicit drugs,” claiming insufficient action by Canada and China to interdict shipments. His response to these claimed threats was a 25 percent tariff on imports from Mexico, 25 percent on imports from Canada (except energy at 10 percent), and an additional 10 percent on imports from China. Since Chinese goods are currently charged with an average rate of 10 percent and most tariffs on Canada and Mexico are near zero, Trump’s decree would have imposed higher levies against them than against China, a U.S. adversary, and put a significant shock to North American trade. Experts have called these tariff actions “reckless” and a “self-inflicted wound to the American economy,” while companies have warned that widespread tariffs will further upend supply chains and stoke inflation.

Cont'd: https://www.cfr.org/article/trumps-tariffs-are-unconstitutional-power-grab

(Wow, my old right-wing compatriots from way back, when I was "in the life," would keel over seeing me cite material from the Council on Friggin' Foreign Relations🤣

[NJCher]

1. Here we go again

The author explains how it was never proven or acknowledged that the border with Mexico was an emergency. I read the Order and there is nothing in there to prove his contention that the situation was an emergency. No facts, statistics, footnotes, etc. Just trump lying again.

So I said to myself, well, maybe it only went down a percentage point, or half a percentage point, in which case you might say the decrease is insignificant.

Not the case.

It went down 4%, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

The IEEPA requires that its use is restricted to emergencies that are unusual and extraordinary.
Unusual and extraordinary seems to me to cease when the problem is receding.

One would think that--with the enormous impact this is going to have on the economies of all three states--Mexico, Canada, and the U.S., that someone would have read this more thoroughly and raised an issue about it immediately. Wouldn't that be the House Ways & Means Committee--Trade? On their website they have their issues listed and they haven't even considered anything in 2025, after trump took office!

We have the 30 days now (except for China), so either Congress or the courts will be the next step. You can be sure that with the amount of money involved, lawsuits will be filed.

The article states the easiest thing to do, however, would be terminate the emergency through a joint resolution; unfortunately that requires a veto-proof majority. Terminating the "emergency" rescinds any actions taken by trump for the emergency.

The good news is that at least they have started--Congress is trying to amend IEEPA to prevent the president from levying tariffs. Tim Kaine, Shaheen, and Wyden introduced this bill.

[NJCher]

2. it just freaking boggles my mind

This is what people mean when they say he is unfit for the office. He hasn't the foggiest notion of how to do anything. He just makes stuff up, like this tariffs thing, and lies for a rationale.

It's amazing that we have all these major corporations in the U.S., headed by supposedly smart people, and has a one of them come out and checked the law, like this writer from Foreign Policy did. I was curious so I did a search under business community criticize trump's tariffs. I got nothing of a factual basis: just warnings that this is going to be terrible, or have a bad effect, etc. What you would expect, but why didn't anyone check into the way he abused this law?

He's known to be a liar, so why wouldn't a person who has a big stake in this check how he went about it?

I'll bet if Pelosi was still speaker of the House, that she would have gotten someone on it.

[Initech]

3. Of course they are. The GOP and Christian right are done with democracy.