\n<\/p>\n
Donald Trump has upended the global economy, imposing steep tariffs on US allies and rivals, dismissing fears of higher prices, and promising his strategy will yield a new \u201cgolden age\u201d. All the president needs to do now is prove he\u2019s allowed to do it.<\/p>\n
Legal experts say he may face an uphill battle.<\/p>\n
In May, the US court of international trade ruled that the bulk of Trump\u2019s tariffs \u201cexceed any authority granted to the president\u201d. And last Friday, the US court of appeals for the federal circuit ruled that Trump\u2019s levies \u201cassert an expansive authority that is beyond the express limitations\u201d of the law his administration has leaned on.<\/p>\n
Now Trump is taking the case to the supreme court, claiming any decision against him would \u201cdestroy\u201d the US.<\/p>\n
The appeals court has paused its ruling, allowing the tariffs to remain in place until 14 October. The administration wants the supreme court to move swiftly; the solicitor general, D John Sauer, has requested the justices decide by Wednesday 10 September, whether to pick up the case. Oral argument could take place in the first week of November, he suggested.<\/p>\n
In a filing this week, Sauer claimed the appeals court\u2019s \u201cerroneous\u201d decision had \u201cdisrupted highly impactful sensitive ongoing diplomatic trade negotiations and cast pall of legal uncertainty over the President\u2019s efforts to protect our country by preventing an unprecedented economic and foreign policy crisis\u201d.<\/p>\n
It sets the stage for the biggest legal test yet of Trump\u2019s controversial and fundamental rewrite of US trade strategy, hiking tariffs on foreign goods to their highest levels in the best part of a century.<\/p>\n
Mark Graber, a leading scholar on constitutional law and politics at the University of Maryland, expects the administration to ultimately lose the case. \u201cThis is an issue that really splits the Trump coalition,\u201d he said. \u201cIf it splits the Trump coalition, it probably splits the Trump coalition on the bench.\u201d<\/p>\n
The US supreme court is dominated by conservative justices, with six of the nine nominated by Republican presidents, including three by Trump. This supermajority has granted Trump 18 straight victories in the administration\u2019s requests for emergency relief \u2013 and been accused by Sonia Sotomayor, a liberal-leaning justice, of undermining the bedrock principle that America is a \u201cgovernment of laws, not of men\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt won\u2019t surprise me if a number of Republicans on the supreme bench actually jump on this one,\u201d continued Graber, who believes four of the court\u2019s conservative voices could be persuaded to vote against the tariffs, perhaps in part to counter the narrative that the court has been hijacked by the right. \u201cI don\u2019t think the [John] Roberts, [Amy Coney] Barrett, [Brett] Kavanaugh people are really very thrilled about tariffs. Probably not [Neil] Gorsuch, either.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think this court would love to have a case where it doesn\u2019t side with the administration,\u201d he said. \u201cThis strikes me as a perfect case\u201d to counter the perception that the supreme court is stacked with \u201cstooges for Trump\u201d.<\/p>\n
At the heart of the case lies the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, a US federal law invoked by Trump. The administration has cited the shipping of fentanyl into the US, and its trade deficits \u2013 how much more it imports than exports \u2013 as emergencies.<\/p>\n
The word \u201ctariff\u201d does not even appear in the law, however, raising questions over whether it grants the president sufficient power.<\/p>\n
The IEEPA \u201cbestows significant authority on the president to undertake a number of actions in response to a declared national emergency\u201d, the appeals court majority wrote, \u201cbut none of these actions explicitly include the power to impose tariffs, duties, or the like, or the power to tax\u201d.<\/p>\n
While Congress has long delegated authority to impose or change tariffs, it has typically been explicit when doing so. But the IEEPA states that presidents can \u201cregulate importation\u201d, and Trump\u2019s allies argue this grants broad powers that could \u2013 and can \u2013 include tariffs.<\/p>\n
The supreme court might be swayed by such an argument, Jonathan Adler, a professor at William & Mary Law School, wrote in the Wall Street Journal: \u201cThe whole point of enacting statutes like IEEPA is to give the president broad authority to address emergencies when they arise.\u201d<\/p>\n
Presidential powers tend to be at their strongest on foreign policy and national security, Adler noted, adding: \u201cWhile IEEPA provides that such actions may \u2018only be exercised\u2019 to address such declared emergencies \u2018and may not be exercised for any other purpose\u2019, courts have rarely felt competent to second-guess the executive branch\u2019s national-security determinations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Should the supreme court ultimately side with Trump, it will embolden the administration to press ahead with his aggressive economic strategy. But should it decide his tariffs are unlawful, the president has claimed the \u201cfinancial fabric of our country\u201d is on the line.<\/p>\n
Despite such stark warnings, some have questioned whether Trump\u2019s rhetoric on tariffs really reflects how he feels. \u201cWe normally think people litigate to win. But in fact, quite frequently people litigate to lose,\u201d said Graber, at the University of Maryland. \u201cThe point was publicity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump \u201cwill not mind a loss\u201d in this case, claimed Graber. \u201cOne of the virtues Trump gets by litigating this loser of a case is he can tell everybody: \u2018I fought for tariffs, I fought for you, it\u2019s just those elitist judges who stopped me,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cHe gets credit for the tariffs, and he doesn\u2019t get the fallout that tariffs would actually create, because they\u2019re declared illegal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Either way, the wheels of justice turn slowly. A decision by the supreme court could take months. All the while, Trump\u2019s tariffs remain in force.<\/p>\n
The administration argues higher duties are strengthening the world\u2019s largest economy, persuading nations to scramble to strike trade deals with the US. But there are early signs of strain, and the deals that have materialized are not substantial.<\/p>\n
In a report released this week, Michael Negron, of the Center for American Progress, a leading liberal thinktank, argued Trump\u2019s \u201cirrational, unpredictable\u201d approach to policymaking and government had imposed a \u201cturbulence tax\u201d on US consumers and businesses.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just something that \u200beverybody\u2019s paying,\u201d Negron, an economic adviser in the Biden White House, said. \u201cAt the root of it is this unstable, unpredictable way in which he does his business.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cIf he had said at the beginning of this process, \u2018I am setting a 15% tariff \u2026 you can take that to the bank\u2019, and he wasn\u2019t changing the policy every couple of weeks, and he wasn\u2019t issuing new threats, and he wasn\u2019t announcing deals that when you look into them aren\u2019t actually significant \u2013 just one, flat number \u2013 I think that would have been received much better, and would have proven less costly, than the ups and downs, and the ups and downs, and the ups and downs.\u201d<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re a small-business owner counting the cost of more expensive imports, or a consumer wandering the aisles of your grocery store and wondering why the bill for your weekly shop is still growing, it\u2019s hard to know what\u2019s coming next.<\/p>\n
But one thing\u2019s for sure: no matter how this case is ultimately settled, the turbulence is unlikely to subside.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Donald Trump has upended the global economy, imposing steep tariffs on US allies and rivals, dismissing fears of higher prices, and promising his strategy will yield a new \u201cgolden age\u201d. All the president needs to do now is prove he\u2019s allowed to do it. Legal experts say he may face an uphill battle. In May,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20039,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[1054,160,159,72,81,71,1259],"class_list":{"0":"post-20038","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-address","9":"tag-court","10":"tag-supreme","11":"tag-tariffs","12":"tag-trump","13":"tag-trumps","14":"tag-win"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}