Donald Trump is so convinced of his mandate that he is battling the courts

Australia Broadcast Center

2 days ago

The only problem with the financial markets' merciless new acronym for the US president — TACO, for Trump Always Chickens Out — is the word "always".
As usual, market players think that if something is happening now it will happen always; they do it with over-heated company valuations and the temporary comfort with too much debt.
Share prices went up and interest rates came down in the days after Donald Trump paused the 50 per cent tariff on Europe following a phone call from European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, so the markets decided Trump always chickens out — time to relax.
Trump heard about his TACO nickname for the first time at a press conference on Wednesday when a reporter asked for his reaction to it.
He took a minute to grasp what was being said and then responded with a rambling defence of his unyielding strength and deal-making art, ending with: "Don't ever say that — it's a nasty question."
Next morning, in a more considered response, he posted a picture of himself on Truth Social walking down the middle of a road at night, looking like a resolute action hero from central casting, with the words: "He's on a mission from God & nothing can stop what is coming."
If investors think Cyclone Donald has passed and it's safe to buy again, they're not paying attention.
For one thing, Trump looks more and more like the elderly, half-engaged, half-non compos figurehead of a very serious revolutionary regime with clear and focused aims.
Those aims include the imposition of "unitary executive theory" — the idea put forward in Project 2025 that all authority should be vested in the president, not the legislative or judicial branches of government (Congress and the courts).
It's not the markets that this regime is battling, but the courts, and it's not clear the regime will comply with their rulings (Congress is prostrate, not defending its constitutional station).
On the same day that Trump learnt about the TACO trade, the US International Trade Court in Manhattan struck down most of his tariffs, which he had imposed using the International Economic Emergency Powers Act of 1977 by declaring that the trade deficit was an emergency.
The court's decision was appealed within minutes and White House spokesperson Kush Desai said: "It is not for unelected judges to decide how to properly address a national emergency."
In fact, the three judges on the trade court, one of whom was appointed by Trump, unanimously found the trade deficit was not an "emergency" and anyway, using it for an "unlimited delegation of tariff authority" by Congress was unconstitutional.
Trump then tapped out a 500-word response on Truth Social in which he wondered whether the ruling had resulted from "purely a hatred of 'TRUMP?'", added he was "very disappointed" in some of his picks as judges and concluded that "the horrific decision stated that I would have to get the approval of Congress for these Tariffs", which, "if allowed to stand, would completely destroy Presidential Power — The Presidency would never be the same!"
The whole post was an incoherent assertion of unitary executive theory.
The tariff case will clearly end up in the Supreme Court because it's hard to imagine the lower appellate court overturning the comprehensive, well-argued decision of the International Trade Court.
It will be one of the most consequential legal cases in the history of the United States, but there are plenty more where that came from: 250 lawsuits are currently before the courts as various plaintiffs work to thwart actions by Trump administration.
According to political scientist Adam Bonica, the administration suffered a 96 per cent loss rate in federal courts in the month of May, and the losses were nonpartisan: 72.2 per cent of Republican-appointed judges and 80.4 per cent of Democratic-appointed judges ruled against the administration.
But the Trump regime, and the president himself, seem so convinced of their electoral mandate and its authority over "unelected judges" that they may simply ignore the rulings.
As Joseph Stalin once said when asked about the authority of the pope: "How many divisions does the pope have?"
That would take the United States into unprecedented crisis, but with what they are saying, it seems unlikely that the Trump regime will meekly submit to the courts.
It's worth noting that unquestioning Trump loyalists have been appointed to most senior positions throughout the government, including, obviously, the Cabinet.
What would happen if Trump lost all the appeals against Wednesday's tariff ruling, including in the Supreme Court, but the recently appointed acting commissioner of US Customs and Border Protection, Pete Flores, decided to go ahead and collect the tariffs anyway?
He was appointed the day before Trump's inauguration and seems to be a career public servant, but he reports to the Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, who is very definitely a Trumpist and would do anything he asked, including firing Flores.
But there's much more going on than the tariff decision.
On Wednesday, US District Judge Tanya Chutkan ruled that 14 states can proceed with their lawsuit against billionaire Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
The administration had tried to dismiss the case, but Chutkan ruled the states had adequately supported their argument that "Musk and DOGE's conduct is 'unauthorised by any law'."
Also, on the same day, District Judge Richard Leon, a George W Bush appointee, struck down Trump's March 27 executive order targeting the law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorre.
This firm angered Trump by employing Robert Mueller, the Republican-appointed special counsel who oversaw an investigation of the ties between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russian operatives.
On Thursday, Harvard won the first round of its lawsuit against Trump's attempt to prevent it from enrolling foreign students, when a federal court ruled Harvard could keep doing it for now.
Trump is also now taking the use of presidential pardons for criminals to a new level, further undermining the courts.
On Thursday, he granted clemency to 25 people, including former New York Republican representative Michael Grimm and former Connecticut governor John Rowland, both of whom were convicted of tax fraud.
Trump also commuted the six federal life sentences of Chicago gang leader Larry Hoover, 74, who was convicted of murder, extortion, money laundering, and drug-related offences.
Earlier last week, he issued a presidential pardon to former Culpeper County, Virginia, sheriff Scott Jenkins, a longtime Trump supporter convicted by a jury of conspiracy, mail and wire fraud, and seven counts of bribery. Trump said he was a "wonderful person" who had been "dragged through HELL".
Also last week, Trump gave a presidential pardon to Paul Walczak, a former nursing home executive who pleaded guilty to tax crimes in 2024. He was pardoned a day after Walczak's mother paid $1 million (to Trump) for a dinner at Mar-a-Lago. The pardon spares Walczak from 18 months in prison and $4.4 million in restitution.
At some point, the Australian government will have to decide where it stands on all this.
Last week, the new prime minister of Canada, Mark Carney, gave a grim, pointed speech, saying:
"The global economy is fundamentally different today to what it was yesterday. The system of global trade anchored on the United States that Canada has relied since the second world war, that system, while not perfect, has helped to deliver prosperity to our country for decades, is over.
"Our old relationship of steadily deepening integration with the United States is over.
"The 80-year period in which the United States embraced the mantle of global economic leadership, when it forged alliances rooted in trust and mutual respect and championed the free and open exchange of goods and services, is over.
"While this is a tragedy, it is also the new reality".
Australia might be further away from the White House than Canada, but we have also had a "steadily deepening integration" with a United States that is fundamentally different to the one we signed up with.
Alan Kohler is finance presenter and columnist on ABC News and he also writes for Intelligent Investor.