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US Trade Court finds Trump tariffs illegal

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Re: US Trade Court finds Trump tariffs illegal

#381

Post by Zanfa »

arunabha wrote: post #267
disqard wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmmm, I think a "pardon factory" would counter that. (not supporting anything about the current strategy... just pointing out that the "line in the sand" doesn't imply that any individuals would actually get in trouble)

Yeah, but then you're depending on a notoriously fickle and unreliable person wanting or remembering to do that when the time comes. Sure, if you're a true believer in the cause you'll take that risk, but a majority of the people in any administration are opportunists, not ideologues.

Even though Trump threw pretty much everybody from his previous administration under the bus, there was no shortage of new volunteers willing to take their chances.

Re: US Trade Court finds Trump tariffs illegal

#382

Post by helsinki8 »

palmotea wrote: post #364
wlesieutre wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He would have to convince the courts that I don't like having a trade deficit with anyone somehow means our trading partners are "placing a burden or disadvantage upon the commerce of the United States by any of the unequal impositions or discriminations aforesaid"

> He would have to convince the courts that I don't like having a trade deficit with anyone somehow means our trading partners are "placing a burden or disadvantage upon the commerce of the United States by any of the unequal impositions or discriminations aforesaid" Why? If the GP quoted the law correctly and the plain-language reading is also the legal one, it's all about what the president finds as fact. I don't s…

"Finds as fact" isn't the same thing as imagines/thinks/claims.

Facts are still different than opinions, that statute doesn't give him unchecked power to declare any crazy idea as fact.

Re: US Trade Court finds Trump tariffs illegal

#383

Post by 3vidence »

worik wrote: post #345
bruce511 wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like most things in life, tarifs can be used well, or used badly. Canada's Dairy Tariff is specifically designed to protect a specific local industry, which exists, is of national interest to keep, and which could come under threat from cheap alternatives imported from abroad. It's specific, targeted, and serves a valuable purpose. They have been in place a long time, and provide a stable trading environment making t…

Any Canadians here to comment on the milk tariff policies? I have spent ten days of my life in Canada and I learnt of the tariffs by news reports concerning people driving to USA, loading up on milk, coming home. Tariffs are not always stupid. But in most cases there is a better alternative. E.g. Canada could subsidise domestic milk producers. (We used to do that in New Zealand) There is a lot of nonsense talked abou…

The supply and purchase of Dairy in Canada is centralized through the government.

Government sets a supply goal and buys that amount from farmers and then resells to the grocers / public.

It's been this way for a long time. The tarrifs are there to control for a case of oversupply in the market, but I also seem to remember that those supply targets haven't actually been met in a single year so the tarrifs effectively don't apply.

Re: US Trade Court finds Trump tariffs illegal

#384

Post by blitzar »

hoseyor wrote: post #177
mangoman wrote: post #121

I'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…

You sure have a lot of confidence in the people in power today to think that they could produce something better than was produced 100 years ago when there was still actual debate and bills were read. These people today just pass bills based on it having a catchy sounding title.

"The One, Big, Beautiful Bill" is not catchy.

Re: US Trade Court finds Trump tariffs illegal

#385

Post by blitzar »

ojbyrne wrote: post #126
eru wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US the president doesn't have the authority to start a war. Congress has the exclusive power to declare wars per the constitution.) (Obviously, in practice that's about as relevant congress having the sole authority over taxes, including tariffs.)

The US hasn't declared war since 1942. They seem to have fought a few large ones since then.

Those were all "Special Operations"

Re: US Trade Court finds Trump tariffs illegal

#386

Post by TwoNineFive »

givemeethekeys wrote: post #366
siliconc0w wrote: post #180

I wonder if this means businesses can request the courts order the government to repay their unconstitutionally levied duties - especially when it meant it basically destroyed their ability to do business.

I still can't find evidence of anyone that has actually paid tariffs - nothing seems to be 3x more expensive compared to before the tariffs supposedly kicked in.

A ton of Walmart's "Mainstay" brand items from China got price-jacked even before their earnings call. Items which were $0.99 before went to $3 or even $7. I have a price tracker that watches a bunch of this stuff.

Some of these items are now completely out of stock, even after the prices went up x3 or x7.

Re: US Trade Court finds Trump tariffs illegal

#387

Post by nobody9999 »

jmyeet wrote: post #242
wredcoll wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most notably, only Congress can declare war, which has been a real sticking point in the last century and why, for example, the Korean War wasn't technically a war (it was a "police action") and why the Vietnam War wasn't either. I keep seeing this brought up as some kind of "gotcha" point, but those wars involved conscription and billions of dollars of additonal military funding, all of which was presumably approv…

It's not a "gotcha". It's just objective fact. There were no war resolutions for Korea and Vietnam. If anything it demonstrates a more recent trend where the executive oversteps its authority to engage in military action and to bypass Congress. As for conscription, this was enabled by Congress in WW2 by "selective service" [1]. The administration maintains the authority to draft male citizens of a certain age into th…

>It's not a "gotcha". It's just objective fact. There were no war resolutions for Korea and Vietnam.

Yeah. Not so much.

While the Korean conflict was not explicitly authorized by Congress, it was tacitly approved by Congress by passing several bills that both directly and indirectly appropriated funds to prosecute the Korean conflict.

That this wasn't followed up by a vote in Congress to make that official is definitely a constitutional issue, but one that SCOTUS did not address directly.

You're quite correct that Congress didn't declare war or provide explicit authorization for the use of military force. That said, it's not quite as cut and dried as you make it out to be.[0][1][2]

Congress gave the Executive branch explicit authorization for the use of military force in Vietnam with the Tonkin Gulf Resolution[3].

[0] https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S8-C11-2...

[1] https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/korea-war-powers-preced...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youngstown_Sheet_%26_Tube_Co._...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_Resolution

Edit: To clarify, I'm not arguing that Congress was correct in not providing explicit authorization for the Korean conflict, nor am I arguing that the Kennedy and Johnson administrations shouldn't have gone to Congress sooner to obtain authorization ala the Tonkin Gulf Resolution. Rather, I'm pointing out that the situation was much more complicated than you make out WRT the Korean Conflict and that there was, in fact, explicit authorization from Congress for prosecuting the war in Vietnam.

Re: US Trade Court finds Trump tariffs illegal

#388

Post by arp242 »

koolba wrote: post #133
lesuorac wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean a plurality of Americans voted for Obama. Should he have been able to ignore the will of congress and appoint supreme court justices to the vacant spots? Nobody is saying that the Republicans in congress cannot set tariffs. We're just saying the _president_ cannot singularly do it. If elected Republicans congress critters want to pass a law establishing the tariff rates and have the elected Republican presiden…

[flagged]

He didn't try it because it would be anti-democratic and fascist to do so. That's why. Not "weakness". Says a lot about you that you use that word to describe adherence to democracy.

Re: US Trade Court finds Trump tariffs illegal

#389

Post by almog »

This could turn differently than anticipated* if 1. Negotiations with EU and China stalls because of the ruling. 2. The Trump administration appeal and win or just ignores this completely.

If both things happen, it could place us back where we were but with an even more vengeful Trump.

* Anticipated by the equity market which rallied to the tunes of this news in the afterhours (ETH)

Re: US Trade Court finds Trump tariffs illegal

#390

Post by forgotoldacc »

somenameforme wrote: post #378
forgotoldacc wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But that completely ignores the fact that literally every other nation, including the US most obviously, has excesses of dependencies on other countries, many of which we aren't friendly with today, and even more that we won't be friendly with tomorrow That's called trade. There's a recorded history of it going back about 5000 years (it goes back farther when you look at artifacts spread around the world before wri…

When you make comments like this, it makes it sound like you think Germany tying their entire country's economy to Russian gas was a reasonable thing to do, because it's just trade after all. I'm trying to avoid straw manning you because I am certain you don't believe this, but your argument would suggest you do. There is self beneficial trade, and there is trade which risks imperiling your own national stability if…

America isn't tied to any single country. Adding tariffs to discourage trade with every country on earth (except Russia, which was exempt from tariffs, while other sanctioned countries like Venezuela were not) isn't anywhere near equivalent to making one's entire energy sources dependent on another country.

You're likely arguing against someone else you've built up in your mind and definitely about another topic. It has no relevance and the trap you're trying to set isn't effective here.

But to take the irrelevant point you're bringing up, Germany switched a substantial amount of its energy sources thanks to having an extensive trade network built up. They would've been screwed if they were dumb enough to tariff all their allies and isolate themselves. Strong trade relations make a country durable during times of conflict.

North Korea is the ideal country in the sense that it's not dependent on outside resources (and blocks most of them) and makes everything at home. They don't have to worry about the risks of trade potentially collapsing. They're free to tariff all their allies. They'll be OK if another country cuts off their gas. And the lesson we can learn from North Korea is to always do the opposite of North Korea, because the country is an absolute failure due to these policies. While its southern neighbor goes all in on trade and specializes in its own unique goods that it exports in exchange for other specialized goods from other countries.

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