{"id":22624,"date":"2025-09-20T03:08:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-20T03:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=22624"},"modified":"2025-09-20T03:08:00","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T03:08:00","slug":"trumps-response-to-a-courts-decision-on-tariffs-is-bonkers-even-for-him-steven-greenhouse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=22624","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s response to a court\u2019s decision on tariffs is bonkers \u2013 even for him | Steven Greenhouse"},"content":{"rendered":"

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J<\/span>ust hours after an appeals court ruled that it was illegal for Donald Trump to impose his unpopular across-the-board tariffs on dozens of countries, he posted a frantic, over-the-top rant that declared: \u201cIf allowed to stand, this Decision would literally destroy the United States of America.\u201d<\/p>\n

So here the president of the United States was asserting that if the courts torpedoed his tariffs, then the US, the most powerful nation on earth, would be destroyed, would \u201cliterally\u201d be kaput. Trump seemed to suggest that court rulings that blocked his beloved tariffs would have the destructive power of, say, 100 hydrogen bombs.<\/p>\n

Call me naive, but I never cease to be amazed when Trump says such egregiously false and ludicrous things. OK, I sometimes forget that he\u2019s the guy who said that noise from wind turbines causes cancer. After narrowly winning the presidency a second time notwithstanding the 30,573 Trump lies, falsehoods and misleading claims in his first term, Trump evidently thinks he can say anything, no matter how false or foolish, and get away with it. As part of his tariff fight, Trump also blurted this absurdity: if the courts don\u2019t uphold his tariffs, \u201cwe would become a Third World Nation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s statement that ending tariffs will destroy the US is totally bonkers because the US became the world\u2019s richest nation and has largely prospered for nearly 250 years (despite occasional slumps) before Trump imposed his \u201cLiberation Day\u201d tariffs in April. In the months before then, the US had solid GDP growth, low unemployment and declining inflation \u2013 the Economist magazine even called the US economy \u201cthe envy of the world\u201d. But now Trump says that if the courts give a thumbs down to his favorite plaything \u2013 I mean weapon \u2013 to bang other countries over the head with, it would end the US. Even Ramesh Ponnuru, editor of the conservative National Review, called that \u201clunatic stuff\u201d.<\/p>\n

The truth is that if the courts block Trump\u2019s across-the-board tariffs, that would be good news for the US economy. It would prevent Trump\u2019s tariffs from further pushing up inflation and slowing economic growth. By giving a thumbs down to Trump\u2019s tariffs, the courts might be doing him a huge economic and political favor because his tariffs, and the inflation they are fueling, have been dragging his dismal approval ratings even lower.<\/p>\n

On 29 August, the US court of appeals for the federal circuit in Washington DC ruled that Trump overstepped his authority when he invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose his Liberation Day tariffs. The court said that act doesn\u2019t give presidents the authority to slap sweeping tariffs on other countries. Trump has appealed the ruling to the supreme court, which might rule on the tariffs this fall.<\/p>\n

The court of appeals repeatedly noted that the constitution gives Congress, not presidents, the power to impose tariffs. It further noted that the Emergency Act doesn\u2019t mention the word \u201ctariffs\u201d even once among the tools the act authorizes presidents to use to deal with emergency trade problems. (That appellate ruling overturned the bulk of Trump\u2019s tariffs: the blanket 10% to 50% tariffs on exports from more than 70 countries. The court didn\u2019t rule on Trump\u2019s product-specific tariffs on steel, aluminum and auto parts.)<\/p>\n

As part of his conniptions over the appeals court ruling, Trump also warned of fiscal disaster, complaining that the US would lose hundreds of billions of dollars if his tariffs were halted. But Trump conveniently forgets that it\u2019s embattled US consumers who will be paying most of those hundreds of billions as they pay Trump\u2019s tariffs, essentially import taxes on furniture, cars, coffee, electronics and other foreign goods.<\/p>\n

In using his hysterical language, Trump evidently had one audience in mind: the supreme court\u2019s six conservative justices who have repeatedly ruled his way. Trump\u2019s goal is evidently to scare the bejesus out of those justices \u2013 he hopes that by shrieking \u201cYou\u2019ll Destroy the Country If You Rule Against Me,\u201d that will persuade them to overturn the appellate court\u2019s decision and uphold his tariffs. (The appellate court let the tariffs remain in force to allow time for appeal.)<\/p>\n

So far in his second term, Trump has a remarkable batting average with the supreme court\u2019s six rightwing justices, who seem astonishingly subservient and supine vis-a-vis the most authoritarian, power-grabbing president in US history. The justices have used their emergency docket to grant Trump administration requests 18 times in a row, often vacating injunctions that lower courts put in place to stop what they saw as Trump\u2019s rampant lawlessness. In repeatedly siding with Trump, the supreme court has scrapped lower court injunctions in several highly controversial cases, provisionally letting Trump fire the chair of the National Labor Relations Board, gut the federal Department of Education, and give Doge \u2013 with its staff of twentysomethings \u2013 access to the highly private social security information of hundreds of millions of Americans.<\/p>\n

Trump is no doubt worried that the supreme court, though submissive so far, will overturn his tariffs. Many conservative and libertarian scholars and lawyers oppose his tariffs as both harmful and illegal. Not only do they dislike the tariffs for pushing up inflation and disrupting global supply chains, but they see Trump\u2019s tariffs as anti-free market and mucking up the US and world economies.<\/p>\n

When Trump announced his Liberation Day tariffs, he invoked a national emergency, saying the US trade deficit and other countries\u2019 tariffs were urgent problems undermining the US economy. Admittedly the trade deficit and other countries\u2019 tariffs are a problem, but in no way do they constitute a national emergency, especially since the US economy was seen as \u201cthe envy of the world\u201d before Trump went hog wild with his tariffs. (There\u2019s no denying that the flood of imports from China and other low-wage nations badly damaged many communities in America\u2019s industrial heartland two and three decades ago.) Wouldn\u2019t it be great if, in this tariff litigation, the supreme court stood up to Trump and issued a candid ruling that told him: \u201cSorry, Mr President, your supposed national emergency is hogwash, a pretext for you to pursue your destructive tariff obsession\u201d?<\/p>\n

The supreme court\u2019s justices shouldn\u2019t let themselves be cowed, bullied or fooled by Trump\u2019s talk that the nation will be destroyed if they nix his tariffs. Trump is like the boy who cried wolf, forever crying catastrophe if he doesn\u2019t get his way. It\u2019s time for the court and the nation to wise up to Trump\u2019s lies, hype and shenanigans.<\/p>\n

Virtually every non-Trumpian economist agrees that Trump\u2019s tariffs have hurt the US by increasing inflation, undermining GDP growth, creating huge headaches for corporations and seriously damaging the US\u2019s relations with other nations. The justices shouldn\u2019t buy Trump\u2019s calamitous warnings that if they overturn his tariffs, the world will end.<\/p>\n

If the justices declare his tariffs illegal, it certainly won\u2019t be a \u201cdisaster\u201d for the US, as Trump has claimed. But it might be a disaster for Trump\u2019s ego and for his dangerous dream of having an authoritarian presidency wholly unchecked by the other branches of government.<\/p>\n

If the supreme court rules against Trump\u2019s tariffs, let\u2019s hope that will serve as a much-needed first step to the court\u2019s developing the backbone to rule many times more against Trump\u2019s authoritarian and lawless actions.<\/p>\n