Last Thursday, on the same day that Trump blitzed the world, yet again, with a new round of tariffs on a broad range of goods, a specialized appeals court in Washington, D.C., inched closer to a definitive pronouncement on whether the President can legally make such sweeping economic demands—on a whim, whenever he feels like it. In one sense, as I’ve written before, judging the legality of Trump’s tariffs, as a matter of basic statutory and constitutional interpretation, is open and shut: the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or I.E.E.P.A., which Trump has invoked, and which grants the President broad authority to take urgent economic actions concerning other nations, doesn’t mention the word “tariffs.” Likewise, the statute, by its plain terms, allows the nation’s chief executive only to deal with “any unusual and extraordinary threat.” A mere trade deficit with another country, one of Trump’s chief justifications for tariffs, is neither unusual nor extraordinary. So far during Trump’s second term, the Justices have made a string of emergency rulings in the President’s favor, blessing the chaos that Trump himself unleashed, and with little regard for the work of lower-court judges.
Author: Cristian Farias
Published at: 2025-08-06 22:11:21
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