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Trump's global tariffs struck down by US Supreme Court

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Re: Trump's global tariffs struck down by US Supreme Court

#581

Post by mindslight »

tfehring wrote: post #56
sschueller wrote: post #4

The global damage has been done. It took too long and it looks like it will only be partially reversed. Constitutional changes are required for other countries to trust in the stability of the US in the future.

I don’t see how constitutional changes would help. The constitution already creates separation of powers, limits on executive authority, and procedures for removing an unfit president or one who commits serious crimes. But these only matter to the extent that majorities of elected and appointed officials care, and today’s ruling notwithstanding, there’s no political will to enforce any of them. The plurality of Ameri…

Necessary changes, off the top of my head:

1. Ranked Pairs voting for national elections, including eliminating the electoral college. Break this two-party duopoly of bad-cop worse-cop.

2. Enshrining the concept of independent executive agencies, with scope created by Congress, with agency heads chosen by the same national elections. (repudiation of "Unitary Executive Theory", and a general partitioning of the executive power which is now being autocratically abused)

3. Repudiation of Citizens United and this whole nonsense that natural rights apply to government-created artificial legal entities (also goes to having a US equivalent of the GDPR to reign in the digital surveillance industry's parallel government)

4. State national guards are under sole exclusive authority of state governors while operating on American soil (repudiation of the so-called "Insurrection Act"). This could be done by Congress but at this point it needs to be in large print to avoid being sidestepped by illegal orders.

5. Drastically increase the number of senators. Maybe 6 or 8 from each state? We need to eliminate this dynamic where many states hate their specific moribund senators, yet keep voting them in to avoid losing the "experienced" person.

6. Recall elections by the People, for all executive offices, members of Congress, and Supreme Court justices. (I don't know the best way to square courts carrying out the "rule of law" rather than succumbing to "rule of the fickle mob", but right now we've got the worst of both worlds)

Re: Trump's global tariffs struck down by US Supreme Court

#582

Post by [deleted] »

GeoAtreides wrote: post #487
blibble wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in the UK a similar unconstitutional behaviour by the head of government took... from the start of the "injury": - 8 days to get to the supreme court - 2 days arguing in court - 5 days for the court to reach a decision 15 days to be ruled on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_(Miller)_v_The_Prime_Ministe...

Ah,yes, british constitutional law. In a country where no parliaments can bind its successors it means there is no constitution and the constitutional law is a polite fiction poorly held together with tradition and precedent.

[deleted]

Re: Trump's global tariffs struck down by US Supreme Court

#583

Post by jasondigitized »

mastax wrote: post #229
apexalpha wrote: post #136

It's odd to me that something as fundamental as 'can the President unilaterally impose tariffs on any country he wants anytime he wants' is apparently so ill defined in law that 9 justices can't agree on it.

It seems likely to me the ruling took this long because John Roberts wanted to get a more unanimous ruling. Additionally, the law in this case isn’t ill defined whatsoever. Alito, Thomas, and to a lesser extent Kavanaugh are just partisan hacks. For many years I wanted to believe they had a consistent and defensible legal viewpoint, even if I thought it was misguided. However the past six years have destroyed that no…

When all of your decisions can be predetermined without even knowing the context of the matter you are surely a hack. It goes like this.....'Does this matter benefit Trump, corporations, rich people or evangelicals?'. Yes? Alito and Thomas will argue its lawful. Every single time.

Re: Trump's global tariffs struck down by US Supreme Court

#585

Post by SilverElfin »

saghm wrote: post #184
SilverElfin wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is probably true. Even before this ruling Trump and Bessent and Lutnick have spoken about how they would react to such a ruling. And it looks like they’re going to do the same thing Democrats do when they don’t like a SCOTUS ruling, and try to implement the same tariffs in a slightly different way to effectively ignore the ruling. We have to fix this. The Supreme Court’s rulings and the US Constitution have to m…

> And it looks like they’re going to do the same thing Democrats do when they don’t like a SCOTUS ruling, and try to implement the same tariffs in a slightly different way to effectively ignore the ruling This is kind of a bizarre whataboutism to throw in there. The current administration (with the full support of Congressional majorities in both houses that have largely abdicated any pretense of having their own pol…

There is a serious problem in our present constitution and laws that lets both parties ignore the law. Just yesterday we had discussions here about Everytown sponsored legislation that will restrict 3D printers. Do you think California has adhered to constitutional norms with their laws? Do you think they have flouted SCOTUS rulings? Have they done so consistently? What about when Biden was backdooring censorship through big tech?

You can answer these questions for yourself and decide. But for me it’s clear that Democrats have repeatedly violated the first and second amendments and normalized those practices. They’ve played a part in creating the norms that now are exploited by the Trump administration. I consider these amendments to be way more important and consequential than a misuse of IEEPA.

I guess what I’m saying is the two sides are indeed comparable, even if I agree the Trump administration is a greater violator of laws and norms than anything before. And we shouldn’t ignore the rot on either side but instead strengthen the constitution to avoid these abuses.

Re: Trump's global tariffs struck down by US Supreme Court

#586

Post by RupertSalt »

Hikikomori wrote: post #254
furyofantares wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do we repeatedly say that tarrifs are passed off in full to the consumer in the form of higher prices? Isn't that as obviously wrong as the argument for them, that they're paid entirely by the other countries? Is there a reason to believe, or evidence, that it's not a mixture of the two? edit: I want to highlight esseph's reply has a link to evidence that last year's tarrifs were passed off 90% to consumers, whic…

It's much more true than saying that the foreign company pays it. Depends on how much slack there is in profit margins for both the exporter and importer, but the consumer does pay most of it, like 90%.

I recommend that commenters shell out and pony up for a thesaurus before its import duty is magnified sixfold.

Re: Trump's global tariffs struck down by US Supreme Court

#587

Post by hluska »

fuzzfactor wrote: post #252
latchkey wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

maybe i lean too much in one direction, but what is a "legitimate tax"? Once again, count on hn for the downvotes. Yep, those shall not speak of downvotes, or taxation.

Excellent question. I lean quite heavily myself. In more ways than one though ;) The most legitimate tax I see is one that citizens would cheerfully pay willingly under any economic conditions.

If you define legitimacy like that, excise taxes look like the only truly legitimate taxes. In my province, that’s things like gasoline, alcohol, tobacco and cannabis. Provincially owned casinos could even be considered a legitimate form of tax though they’re not really a tax.

Re: Trump's global tariffs struck down by US Supreme Court

#588

Post by lhopki01 »

bregma wrote: post #572
lhopki01 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why Americans are so certain that their system of separation of powers is the right one. Most countries don't separate the executive and legislative like that. The executive is whoever can command the support of the legislative. If you think about the US system it makes no sense. An executive can just ignore the rules created by the legislative by just not enforcing it and the only means to stop that is…

The structure of British government during the Hanoverian times was little different from what the UK has today. The monarch was effectively a powerless figurehead and executive decisions were made mostly by faceless very wealthy individuals in back rooms with the public face carried by a small set of charismatic figures who usually sat in parliament. The US system was designed as a grand experiment. It made a certai…

It's quite different. The House of Lords was much more powerful well into the 19th century. The monarch was hardly a powerless figure in those times. The Bill of Rights 1689 probably shifted the power more towards Parliament than before but the monarch was still very powerful. The UK system continues to evolve with notable precedents being set very recently like requiring a consultation of Parliament before embarking on military action and the limitation of prorogation powers.

The setup isn't the problem. The refusal to evolve is the problem.

I'd argue that it wasn't really the system in place. The system in place was one of states governing themselves. Before independence the states didn't really deal much with each other.

Re: Trump's global tariffs struck down by US Supreme Court

#589

Post by root_axis »

sschueller wrote: post #4

The global damage has been done. It took too long and it looks like it will only be partially reversed. Constitutional changes are required for other countries to trust in the stability of the US in the future.

Good luck ratifying any constitutional amendments that are in any way a response to MAGA.

Re: Trump's global tariffs struck down by US Supreme Court

#590

Post by nprz »

edot wrote: post #40

Howard Lutnick and his sons are surely happy about this. It’s almost like Howard Lutnick, the Secretary of Commerce , knew this would happen. His sons, at their firm Cantor Fitzgerald, have been offering a tariff refund product wherein they pay companies who are struggling with paying tariffs 20-30% of a potential refund, and if (as they did today) they get struck down, they pocket the 100% refund. https://www.financ…

And this is the same Howard Lutnick who was just last week was caught blatantly lying about his relationship with Epstein?

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/30/new-epstein-...

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