By Noah Rothman
Monday, October 27, 2025
The Supreme Court will soon hear oral arguments in a case
that could decide the fate of Donald Trump’s omnidirectional trade war. If the
president’s tariffs are to survive judicial scrutiny, Trump’s solicitors will
have to convince the Court that the president has not capriciously stewarded
the national security powers Congress vested in the executive branch. Trump’s
obvious caprice complicates matters for his attorneys.
The president said over the weekend in no uncertain terms
that his decision to boost tariffs on Canadian exports is wholly and entirely
the result of his irritation over a television advertisement — a “hostile
act,” he said, that engaged in a “serious misrepresentation of the facts.”
As Dan McLaughlin wrote, the president’s characterization of
the ad is highly debatable. The spot, which was commissioned by Ontario
province officials, features a 1987 address by Ronald Reagan — a short speech
that anyone could watch if they were curious — in which he was as critical of
tariffs as he had been throughout his career as a political communicator.
Trump and his allies, now in command of the right’s
institutions, all but universally deemed the ad a misrepresentation of Reagan’s
actual trade philosophy, and those who satisfy themselves with appeals to
authority took their protests as gospel. But the ad rings true because it is
true. It was that truth that led Trump, in what looks like a fit of pique, to
subvert American trade relations with its closest neighbor. Indeed, Trump does
not imagine repairing relations with Canada “for
a while” as he fumes over a biting television commercial.
Would the Founders, who had only just overthrown a
tyranny that, among other offenses, was dictatorially “cutting off our Trade
with all parts of the world,” have recognized that usurpation as an impeachable
offense? Perhaps. Should the underlying sin, the president’s contempt for the
separation of powers, inspire some congressional remedy? Absolutely.
For several months, senior White House officials have explained that many of
the president’s actions stem from his trepidation over a potential third
impeachment investigation. Trump is, thus, intently focused on the midterm
election, going so far as to encourage GOP-led states to commit to mid-decade redistricting
if only to hold onto the Republican Party’s narrow House
majority.
But the president’s efforts to goad and taunt Democratic
voters are making his repudiation at the polls more likely. And if his
opponents are set on impeaching Trump again, the president’s personalization of
the presidency has given them a wealth of options to pursue.
Trump’s assumption of quasi-legislative powers in the
conduct of his trade war is one slight against congressional authority. His
non-compliance with the law is another. Trump did not have the legal authority
to fail to enforce a congressional edict compelling the sale of TikTok. The
terms of TikTok’s sale that he has since ironed out with Beijing remain opaque,
but reporting last month indicated that “China gets to keep the
TikTok algorithm, simply licensing the algorithm to the US instead of handing
over the heart of TikTok’s success.” China’s cybersecurity regulator, Wang Jingtao, confirmed as much. If those are the terms, it
would not just be suicidally negligent. It would also represent a challenge to
Congress that a less pliant legislature might be inclined to meet.
So, too, are the president’s airstrikes on Venezuelan “drug boats.” The
administration appeals to no legal authority to conduct those strikes. It has
not adequately informed Congress of the campaign’s objectives or its strategic
justification. It has executed strikes that our partners claim have targeted their civilians, and survivors of those strikes
have been summarily repatriated to their countries of origin,
presumably, because there is no evidence to keep them in detention as dangerous
enemy combatants.
Again, a Congress invested in its primacy as the first
branch of government might do something about this. These good governance
concerns may, however, not fuel the Democratic Party’s desire for requital as
much as would the president’s more facially corrupt initiatives.
Trump refused even to observe cosmetic decorum at the
outset of his second term when he sought seven-figure sums from donors explicitly for the
privilege of attending special events at his Florida golf club to be in
proximity to the president or even to secure a one-on-one meeting with Trump
himself. Lest there be any confusion, of course, the White House insisted that
the president was “not asking for funds or donations” to attend these events.
Congressional investigators might make a show of an inquiry into that claim
anyway.
Likewise, a less lethargic legislature would probably
take a dim view of Trump’s decision to pardon Changpeng Zhao. His firm, the
cryptocurrency exchange Binance, pleaded guilty to violating U.S.
anti-money-laundering statutes, and Zhao served a brief prison sentence in
relation to his involvement in that scheme. “Since Trump’s election,” the Wall Street Journal reported, “Binance has also been
a key supporter of his family’s World Liberty Financial crypto venture, a
business that has driven a huge leap in the president’s personal wealth.” The
fact that the president’s adult children have a clear financial stake in Zhao’s
amnesty did not impose circumspection on Trump. A future Congress could.
And all this is to say nothing of how the president’s
Justice Department has conducted itself. Trump himself accidentally posted a directive ordering Attorney General
Pam Bondi to find evidence of prosecutable misconduct by his political
adversaries, including James Comey and Letitia James. That fits the fact
pattern established by U.S. Attorney Erik Siebert, who resigned after concluding
that he could not bring charges against the president’s targets. “I want him
out,” Trump said, claiming that he lost faith in his nominee to
serve as interim U.S. attorney in Virginia’s Eastern District because he only
belatedly learned that Virginia’s two Democratic senators supported Siebert.
That doesn’t pass the smell test, and Congress should want a closer whiff.
As corruption allegations go, these are not nearly as
open and shut as the case against Trump would be if he simply cut himself a $230 million check from the U.S. Treasury.
“All I know is they would owe me a lot of money, but I’m not looking for
money,” the president told reporters, citing his desire to recoup the legal
fees incurred while defending himself against federal charges his Justice
Department subsequently dropped. Even the president’s supporters in conservative media have gone squeamish over
the president’s efforts to make himself whole, and some Democrats have already deemed the proposed maneuver
“blatantly illegal and unconstitutional.”
Democratic lawmakers may be easily antagonized, but that
doesn’t mean the president isn’t deliberately antagonizing them. The instigating talk of (and merch advertising for) an illegal third term, the talk of siccing the Pentagon on the city of Chicago, the
AI-generated social media posts featuring Democrats in sombreros or having feces dumped on them, literally, from great heights — it’s
all deliberately provocative. And when its targets are duly provoked, Trump’s
defenders insist that it’s all “a
bit” and his opponents’ hyperventilation is a mark of their own
derangement.
Indeed, this is shtick, but Trump isn’t immune from the
fate reserved for hacks whose act gets stale.
The president is a lame duck facing his second midterm
election. He is staring down the prospect of a Democratic comeback in the
House, at last, and the renewed potential for another arduous impeachment
investigation. And although the reporting indicates that Trump does not welcome
that prospect, he’s doing everything in his power to bring it about while
giving his opponents ample evidence in support of the initiative.
It’s not a smart strategy, if we can even call it that.
But those who warn the president and his subordinates to stop acting like they
have nothing to fear from the first branch of government are typically shouted
down by those who insist Trump can do little wrong. So long as his cheering
section enjoys the show, they’ll get more of it.
But the fan base’s investment in Trump’s political
position will decline as the president’s star fades along with his
constitutionally circumscribed political career. As such, the right will feel
less pressure to pretend they would not regard the president’s actions as
indefensible if a Democrat had committed them. If the imperative to defend
Trump at all costs will hold less sway over the right, the desire to get him
will still consume the left. It’s a political imbalance that will not benefit
Trump in the inherently political spectacle of impeachment proceedings.
That’s why the Trump administration should stop handing
ammunition to its opponents. If maintaining the appearance of civic propriety
isn’t enough, the prospect of another legacy-staining impeachment investigation
should focus minds within the president’s inner circle.
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