The U.S. Court of International Trade has ruled that Donald Trump lacks the authority to imposed tariffs, which does seem to be a rather straightforward reading of the Constitution, which very clearly assigns taxing authority to Congress.
A panel of federal judges on Wednesday blocked President Trump from imposing some of his steepest tariffs on China and other U.S. trading partners, finding that federal law did not grant him “unbounded authority” to tax imports from nearly every country around the world.
The ruling, by the U.S. Court of International Trade, delivered an early yet significant setback to Mr. Trump, undercutting his primary leverage as he looks to pressure other nations into striking trade deals more beneficial to the United States.
Before Mr. Trump took office, no president had sought to invoke the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a 1977 law, to impose tariffs on other nations. The law, which primarily concerns trade embargoes and sanctions, does not even mention tariffs.
But Mr. Trump adopted a novel interpretation of its powers as he announced, and then suspended, high levies on scores of countries in April. He also used the law to impose tariffs on products from Canada and Mexico in return for what he said was their role in sending fentanyl to the United States.
Yeah, great job normalizing bat=sh%$ insane and clearly unconstitutional behavior.
The decision has been stayed by the appellate court, which is not a surprise, as this is clearly going to the Supreme Court, where the results should be a slam dunk for the opponents of the tariffs, if one assumes that the justices are neither corrupt nor political partisans.
Of course, since 6 of the current Justices are corrupt political partisans, so I'm not sure as to the likelihood of an honest ruling.
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