Limits and legality of alternative authorities

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The Supreme Court has ruled that most of Donald Trump’s tariffs are illegal.But that does not mean he’s gonna stop trying – and in fact he’s already moving to get around the court’s decision. And for all that to make sense a key thing is that this ruling applied specifically to tariffs put in place under something called the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Which is a law passed in 1977 giving the President broad economic powers “to deal with any unusual and extraordinary threat…to the national security, foreign policy or economy” of the country. 

It’s a law that has been invoked dozens of times by various presidents to impose sanctions, block transactions, freeze assets, and restrict imports or exports. But – until Trump – nobody had invoked the law to implement tariffs. One, because the law makes absolutely zero mention of that being a thing you can do. And, two, because the Constitution very clearly gives Congress the power to impose taxes – not the president. 

And tariffs, of course, they’re just taxes imposed on imported goods.They’re paid by whoever is bringing the goods in. And experts say that cost is often passed on to the consumer – although that’s a concept Trump has long found difficult to grasp. And so he insisted it’d be great for the country when he first invoked the law to put tariffs in place on goods from China, Canada, and Mexico – with the “emergency” having to do with illegal immigration and drug trafficking. 

And he did so again in April when he put in place so-called “reciprocal” tariffs on imports from nearly every country on Earth. With the “emergency” this time being the country’s “large and persistent” trade deficits, and the tariffs each country got hit with being based on the size of those deficits. Although, notably, the math the White House used to calculate these figures made almost no economic sense.

And, since a trade deficit isn’t inherently a bad thing – you had many experts arguing the policy in general made no economic sense. With opposition coming not only from Democrats but also Libertarian and pro-business groups typically aligned with the Republican party, and polling showing that tariffs also weren’t broadly popular with the general public. 

And, ultimately, you had data coming out just this week suggesting they haven’t been all that effective at their stated purpose – with the country’s overall trade deficit reaching a record-high in 2025. But, of course, these tariffs weren’t struck down because they were bad policy, they were struck down because they were illegal. With a 6-3 majority reaffirming that the Constitution “very clearly” gives Congress the power to impose taxes – including tariffs.

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Produced by: Cory Ray, Philip DeFranco

Edited by: James Girardier, Maxwell Enright, Julie Goldberg, Christian Meeks, Matthew Henry

Art Department: William Crespo

Writing/Research: Jared Paolino, Philip DeFranco

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#USA #America #Tariffs  

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