Congress Should End Trump’s Trade War

National Review Online

Tuesday, April 08, 2025

 

Last Wednesday, standing at a podium in the White House Rose Garden, the president of the United States threw the world’s economy into turmoil. Having declared that America’s trade deficit represented a bona fide “emergency,” President Trump revealed a completely rewritten federal tariff regime. The result of these alterations was an increase in protectionist barriers that exceeded even the infamous Smoot-Hawley law in its scope.

 

For two days, the stock market responded to this move by diving sharply downward. Monday morning, after a false report that the president was planning to endorse a 90-day pause in implementation, there was a brief rally, but this ended when the administration made clear that it intended to stay the course. At present, more than $10 trillion of investment has been wiped out, and every stockholder in the world is watching the Oval Office in the hope of discovering what to do next. Apparently, l’état, c’est moi is in reruns.

 

If it seems preposterous that a single person could enjoy this much power over the American economy — and, with it, the global economy — rest assured that it is. In Article I, the Constitution vests the “power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises” in Congress, not in the president. As a result, the president has no power to impose tariffs that he has not been accorded by an act of the legislature. If it desires, Congress can choose to take back as much of that power as it sees fit. It ought to do so — and do so now.

 

That the Founders placed the power to tax, tariff, and legislate in the hands of the legislature, instead of the executive, was not an accident. On the contrary: This allocation sat at the very core of the system that they designed. Because legislatures play host to a diverse cast of characters — characters who have different views, are elected by different groups, and come from different regions — they are less prone to dogmatism, caprice, and flightiness than are monarchs, presidents, or emperors. Especially within the United States, where the Senate often checks the passions of the House, the procedural challenges that result from this tend to ensure that only those proposals that enjoy broad purchase among the citizenry’s representatives are able to become law. This arrangement has two chief benefits. First, it guarantees that the ideas under consideration will be subject to serious criticism and debate. Second, it makes it difficult to alter the status quo on a whim — which, in turn, makes it easier for the people to understand the laws under which they live.

 

This predictability is useful in all areas of civic life. But it is especially beneficial in the financial realm, where stability is imperative. Businesses, investors, workers, and families are all aided enormously by a reliable comprehension of what their tax rates, operating rules, regulatory liabilities, and tariff exposures are likely to be for the foreseeable future. When those variables are determined by Congress, the debates that inform them are transparent and the laws that result are built to endure. When those variables are determined by the president, the debates that inform them are opaque and the law is liable to change radically from day to day. In essence, the case for Congress fulfilling its responsibilities is the same as the case for written law per se: No free man wants to be at the mercy of a king.

 

The very fact that our system charges Congress with setting tariffs ought to be sufficient to get Congress to do its job. So, too, ought the president’s cynical conflation of his personal political preferences and the existence of an “emergency” that unlocks his absolute powers. But, if duty to their oaths does not move them, the raw chaos of the last five days should certainly substitute as motivation. What has happened since last Thursday is hard to fathom. Based on an ever-shifting series of rationales, characterized by an embarrassing methodology, and punctuated with an extraordinary arrogance toward the country’s constitutional order, the Trump administration has alienated our global allies, discombobulated our domestic businesses, decimated our capital markets, and increased the likelihood of serious recession. This should alarm the members of both political parties — and, in particular, it should worry the hundreds of Republican legislators who, in less than two years’ time, will be judged in large part on whether the president who shares their brand has done a good job.

 

We are of the view that many of the delegations of authority that Congress has granted to the executive are unconstitutional, and that they should be struck down as such by the Supreme Court. At some point, we hope that a majority of the justices are persuaded to agree. For now, though, it falls to the current members of Congress to do what, for decades, they have proven steadfastly unwilling to do: their jobs.