Donald Trump is standing firm that he has the authority to issue blanket tariffs even though our laws say differently.
To that point, a Trump official just came forward to more or less say they will not abide by court rulings when it comes to tariffs.
Trump knows he does not have blanket authority to issue pardons, but the one loophole around that is to use presidential emergency powers.
So, Trump declared an economic emergency, then announced that he was going to impose global tariffs on every trading partner the United States has in order to get better trade deals and lower the trade deficit.
Trump’s order stated, “President Trump is invoking his authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA) to address the national emergency posed by the large and persistent trade deficit that is driven by the absence of reciprocity in our trade relationships and other harmful policies like currency manipulation and exorbitant value-added taxes (VAT) perpetuated by other countries.”
The order went on to explain that the tariffs would remain in place until Trump believes no further threat was posed to the United States.
Last week, Trump was given the bad news that a federal court had ruled against Trump in terms of being able to use emergency powers to put these tariffs in place.
The court ruled, “The Worldwide and Retaliatory Tariff Orders exceed any authority granted to the President by IEEPA to regulate importation by means of tariffs.”
White House spokesperson Kush Desai responded, stating this national emergency “that has decimated American communities, left our workers behind, and weakened our defense industrial base — facts that the court did not dispute.”
The statement continued that Trump was “committed to using every lever of executive power to address this crisis and restore American Greatness.”
The administration is now sending out mixed messages, as Trump had stated his administration would abide by court rulings, yet an administration official just stated that the tariffs are “not going away.”
Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick stated, “Congress gives the president, under this IEEPA authority the ability to take on other countries who are creating a national emergency and the $1.2 trillion trade deficit and all the underlying implication implications of that is a national emergency, it is getting our manufacturing base, the president takes that on and Congress lets him do it.
“Specifically does not vote to take it away. Calls a vote and says he can keep this. What is going to happen is we will take that up to higher courts. The president will win like he always does.”
So, once again, it will come down to the Supreme Court deciding if Trump got a little ahead of himself by declaring an emergency to invoke these powers. And by the way, Lutnick may want to reconsider that last statement because Trump has been getting obliterated in the courts, and he will continue to do so on the majority of his orders. This one, however, is tricky, but it will likely be decided by Chief Justice Roberts, who always seems to take at least one Trump-appointed justice with him when he crosses the aisle.
