Betcha he just ignores the ruling and carries on as normal (or tries to, anyway).
US Trade Court finds Trump tariffs illegal
321–330 of 568 posts
Re: US Trade Court finds Trump tariffs illegal
#322Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Tariff Act of 1930 reflects the duality between the President’s executive power to conduct foreign policy and Congress’s legislative power to set taxes. Until the early 20th century, tariffs were the primary mechanism for raising federal revenue. So Congress viewed tariffs as a tax, within Congress’s purview. But the 1930 Tariff Act also recognizes that tariffs are also a tool of foreign policy, which is within t…
Congress didn't delegate tariff power to the president absolutely. The executive branch still needs to make the case that the tariffs are being put into place for specific reasons that are covered by the specific ways that Congress delegated tariff power. The court here seems to have decided the executive has not done that.
Further, Congress can't delegate tariff power to the President absolutely; any such delegation would be unconstitutional.
Re: US Trade Court finds Trump tariffs illegal
#323Earlier quoted context omitted.
He doesn’t have to convince the courts of that. The President makes foreign policy, not the courts. As long as the President is plausibly exercising a foreign policy power Congress gave him, the courts don’t get to reweigh the evidence and decide for themselves whether the trade deficits result from other countries placing trade barriers or something else.
> He doesn’t have to convince the courts of that. [..] As long as the President is plausibly exercising a foreign policy power Congress gave him... Sure he does. The various tariff-related acts don't give the president carte blanche to set tariffs whenever he pleases. The acts give him the power to enact tariffs under certain conditions. If the president cannot convince a court that "having a trade deficit" falls und…
> The acts give him the power to enact tariffs under certain conditions
Right, but the “condition” in the law is that the President first makes a “finding” that other countries have engaged in unfair treatment. The president only needs to convince the court the finding has been made. But whether a trade deficit results from trade barriers or something else is a decision that Congress has delegated to the President to make.
Re: US Trade Court finds Trump tariffs illegal
#324Earlier quoted context omitted.
He doesn’t have to convince the courts of that. The President makes foreign policy, not the courts. As long as the President is plausibly exercising a foreign policy power Congress gave him, the courts don’t get to reweigh the evidence and decide for themselves whether the trade deficits result from other countries placing trade barriers or something else.
How is taxing American importers "foreign policy?"
It does affect trade (setting tariff high enough basically equals to no trade policy for example) with those countries and hence it is foreign policy.
Re: US Trade Court finds Trump tariffs illegal
#325I'm not a lawyer or even close to it, but why wouldn't the trump admin use the tariff act of 1930? quote: "Whenever the President shall find as a fact that any foreign country places any burden or disadvantage upon the commerce of the United States by any of the unequal impositions or discriminations aforesaid, he shall, when he finds that the public interest will be served thereby, by proclamation specify and declar…
The ruling was basically that the tariffs themselves were unconstitutional. Specifically, the court found trump's tariffs so arbitrary that congress is forbidden from delegating the power to impose such tariffs to him. In order to not void the laws congress passes, the court can reinterpret the wording of the law so that it stops being unconstitutional. This leads to some explanation that the particular law he invoked gave him too narrow a power, but any law you can mention, no matter how broad it seems, would be interpreted by the court as too narrow (or as unconstitutional). Trump's argument in this case was basically, well I can declare an emergency any time I like, and I can claim that whatever I'm doing is fixing the emergency, so I can do whatever I want. Even though they might otherwise have given him that broad discretion, in order to maintain separation of powers they had to call bullshit on that reasoning.
Re: US Trade Court finds Trump tariffs illegal
#326Why is this country insisting on this ridiculous infighting? Why do you have a democracy if your bureaucracy is set up to resist the person the people elected? Didn't this exact sort of thing happen when a democrat was elected, the republicans basically stonewalled all progress? Now the dem bureaucracy is stonewalling the republicans? Is this how checks and balances is supposed to work? Am I being naive in thinking it wasn't always like this?
Re: US Trade Court finds Trump tariffs illegal
#327Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, setting tariffs is a regulatory and economic power, and even in a hard unitary executive model, the President doesn't have plenary power over tariffs. This is literally an enumerated power of Congress, which makes it hard for me to understand why you started down this path on this thread.
That’s an argument that the Tariff Act of 1930 is unconstitutional, which is a different argument.
No, it's an argument that your interpretation of the act is (pretty clearly) unconstitutional.
Re: US Trade Court finds Trump tariffs illegal
#328Why is this country insisting on this ridiculous infighting? Why do you have a democracy if your bureaucracy is set up to resist the person the people elected? Didn't this exact sort of thing happen when a democrat was elected, the republicans basically stonewalled all progress? Now the dem bureaucracy is stonewalling the republicans? Is this how checks and balances is supposed to work? Am I being naive in thinking i…
> Is this how checks and balances is supposed to work?
Yes, check and balances assume a conservative* theory of government in which politicians should be restrained and changes should be require overwhelming support to implement.
*- not conservative in the sense of political ideology, but conservative in the sense of attempting to conserve.
Re: US Trade Court finds Trump tariffs illegal
#329Earlier quoted context omitted.
He doesn’t have to convince the courts of that. The President makes foreign policy, not the courts. As long as the President is plausibly exercising a foreign policy power Congress gave him, the courts don’t get to reweigh the evidence and decide for themselves whether the trade deficits result from other countries placing trade barriers or something else.
How is taxing American importers "foreign policy?"
In the same way economic sanctions are foreign policy. The tax is just a tool to alter the US’s economic relationships with foreign nations.
Re: US Trade Court finds Trump tariffs illegal
#330Earlier quoted context omitted.
> id the President make a finding? Here, the President did make a finding. At that point, the courts' jurisdiction gives way to the President's discretion. This seems incorrect > cases in which the Executive possesses a constitutional or legal discretion In this case though the laws wording would determine where the discretion starts and ends. "... whenever he shall find as a fact that such country—" so the president…
The court’s power is limited to determining whether the President made a finding in the nature of the finding required by the law. What the court can’t do is then second guess that finding—analyzing it substantively to determine whether it is correct or not.
> What the court can’t do is then second guess that finding—analyzing it substantively to determine whether it is correct or not.
Asking weather if follows a.1 and a.2 does not seem 100% independent of asking if it is correct or not.
"I as president claim a.1, and a.2 are not being violated their for the law allows me to impose a tariff"
"I as president stubbed my toe this morning therefore a.1 and a.2 have been violated and I will be imposing a tariff."
"a.1 and a.2 have been violated, no I will not tell you how, therefor tariff."
You are saying it is black and white, but it does not seem so in the examples above.