Trump's tariff drama shows he doesn't understand what America stands for

Telegraph

2 days ago

With his usual idiosyncratic use of capital letters, Donald Trump has pronounced judgment on the court which presumed to halt his tariff programme. If allowed to stand, their decision would, he wrote on his Truth Social platform,'completely destroy Presidential Power'. These 'backroom hustlers', he went on, 'must not be allowed to destroy our Nation'.
Presumably the reference to the three judges (one of whom was appointed by Trump himself) as engaging in a sleazy 'backroom' conspiracy was an iteration of the earlier White House claim that these 'unelected judges' were arrogantly abusing their authority by interfering in the policy decisions of the President.
This is, in fact, entirely wrong. What Trump regards as his rightful 'Presidential Power' does not permit him to make unilateral changes in tariffs (or in most economic policies) without the consent of Congress. He, or at least some of his advisers, seemed to have been aware of this at the outset because they framed their package of new tariffs as an 'emergency measure' which, in theory, would give the President permission to act without following the normal legislative procedure.
This emergency provision was, of course, designed for dealing with wars or natural emergencies of a catastrophic kind. Congress and the federal courts were, traditionally, only to permit this kind of intervention by a President on grounds of national security.
So the Trump White House originally declared a 'national economic emergency' and invoked the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, but more recently, perhaps aware that this might be too ambiguous and difficult to defend, changed its designation of the crisis to a 'fentanyl epidemic'.
While this term might just conceivably account for the punitive tariffs on Mexico, it is hard to see how it could be applicable to the European Union whose trade advantage with the US might be more to do with the fact that there are more Americans who want to buy European things than there are Europeans who want to buy American things. (Harley-Davidson motorbikes and Levi jeans apparently account for most imports from the US.)
The derisive reference to judges as 'unelected' – and thus supposedly without legitimate power to intervene in presidential decisions – shows a total misunderstanding of the role of the judiciary whose function is precisely to interpret the Constitution and decide whether actions taken by the Executive (the Presidency) and the Legislature (Congress) are legal. Being 'unelected' is what, in theory at least, allows judges to make disinterested, non-partisan decisions.
That is the great abiding principle of the United States Constitution. This country was to be, the Founders declared, 'a nation of laws, not men'. Ultimate authority over the conduct of national life – and the relationship between government and the citizenry – could never be dependent on the will (or the whims) of any elected politician, but must always be subject to judicial interpretation. The law – and those whose job it was to interpret it – had authority over any individual who held office.
The 'Presidential Power' which Trump believes is rightly his was never intended to be absolute – even though he was elected by what he insists was a 'landslide': that no one person should ever have unchecked power was the defining point of the American Revolution.
Even if subsequent Court rulings go in his favour and overturn the original judgement which threw the Trump reality tv Tariff Show into further doubt after weeks of backtracking and climbdown 'deals', the principle will stand. It was a Court that put an end to his arbitrary declaration of a new economic policy and it will take another Court to reverse that judgement. The Constitution will hold against the onslaught – just as it did on that infamous January day of Capitol rioting when an exceptionally courageous Vice President, Mike Pence, continued to count the votes that took the presidency away from his own administration. It is quite extraordinary how a document which embodies an inspirational idea can survive even when it is being tested nearly to destruction.
But there is one element of American political doctrine which the Trump White House seems to have embraced wholeheartedly – even if it applies it more abroad than at home. Rather bizarrely, the President and his attack dog JD Vance have taken to lecturing other countries with historic democratic traditions (like this one) on free speech. Even as Trump and his breathtakingly aggressive press spokeswoman, Karoline Leavitt, are threatening to banish journalists who ask unhelpful questions, and his administration is attempting to prevent Harvard from admitting foreign students because some unpleasant things have been said on its campus, the White House solemnly declares its concern about the fate of British citizens whose careless tweets have resulted in prosecution.
Sending people to prison for inflammatory social media posts is a seriously contentious issue which must be (and has been) exhaustively debated in Britain. That discussion has been held – as would be expected in this most rational of countries – with good conscience and proper deliberation on both sides. But what business does the most authoritarian, bullying, diplomatically obtuse administration in modern American history have inserting itself into this discussion?
Considering their own problems at home which, according to the White House, actually constitute a national emergency, why are they intervening in what we ourselves recognise as a serious domestic issue? This would be wildly inappropriate even if Trump's insults and abuse of anyone who contradicts him did not make his passion for other people's free speech absurd. So what is this about?
It is a distraction. Nothing more than an attempt to draw public attention away from the international chaos his original tariff plans unleashed, his failure to stop Putin's war in Ukraine or to bring peace to the Middle East, the huge profits made by his family and friends on the crypto gambits he has launched and perhaps finally, what could prove his inability to cut taxes if he cannot ram his tariff programme through. That is the real motivating force behind this selective passion for free expression from a President who just last week shouted at a reporter who asked a disobliging question: 'Don't ever say what you said.'