Trump Advisers Claim Vast New Powers for Trade War

“Donald Trump’s economic advisers are eyeing aggressive new legal justifications to impose tariffs on all imports, seeking to buttress a second-term plan that would reshape the U.S. economy,” the Washington Post reports.

“On the campaign trail, Trump has repeatedly promised to enact a ‘ring’ around the U.S. economy by enacting a tariff of at least 10 percent on goods imported from any other nation. Trump’s plan would target more than $3 trillion in annual imports and risks sending inflation soaring in what probably would prove the biggest escalation of trade hostilities in decades, ratcheting up the standoffs that marked his first term.”

“But the Constitution gives power over both taxation and regulation of foreign commerce to Congress, which complicates the extent to which the president can impose tariffs through executive action. Robert Lighthizer, Trump’s top trade counselor, has said publicly that the former president could invoke one of two legal theories to justify a ‘universal’ tariff on all U.S. trading partners.”