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Politico
4 minutes ago
- Politico
Why Trump's newly announced tariffs aren't a done deal
THE LAW ON LIBERATION DAY — On Thursday, Donald Trump announced sweeping new tariffs against U.S. trading partners that will go into effect next week. The announcement came on the same day that an appeals court grappled with the question of whether Trump's tariffs are even legal. Indeed, there is a strong argument that the tariffs are illegal and unconstitutional. The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, which on Thursday held oral argument on two major tariff challenges — one from a group of small businesses and the other from a coalition of twelve states led by Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield — seems like it may ultimately agree. Rayfield was pleased with how it went. 'If you were an outside observer watching the hearing and you had to pick a party to stay in the shoes of, I think you would prefer to be in the state's shoes after Thursday's hearing,' Rayfield said in an interview with POLITICO this afternoon. That seems to be the consensus among close observers. 'Federal appeals court judges on Thursday sharply questioned President Donald Trump's authority,' POLITICO's Kyle Cheney and Doug Palmer wrote. Reuters put it similarly, while the Associated Press reported that the judges 'expressed broad skepticism' toward the government's arguments. The New York Times' account said that Brett Shumate, the lawyer arguing for the government, 'at times faced an icy reception.' This is not that surprising if you have been following this legal saga closely. The Constitution explicitly gives the power to impose tariffs to Congress. Congress has passed several trade laws that provide the president with the power to impose tariffs in certain circumstances, but they do not grant the sweeping and unreviewable power that the Trump administration has claimed — and indeed requires in order to support Trump's tariffs as a legal matter. Meanwhile, the statute that has actually been invoked by the Trump administration — the International Emergency Economic Powers Act — has never been used to impose tariffs over the course of the nearly half-century that it has been on the books, and it makes no mention of tariffs in the text. It was in fact passed to limit the president's emergency economic powers. On top of that, the key case cited by the government in its favor does not actually support their position (usually a bad thing). Thus far, two lower courts have ruled against the administration on this issue — a unanimous three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of International Trade and a federal district court judge in Washington, D.C. Both rulings have been stayed pending appeal. Thursday's argument concerned the first of those rulings and was conducted in the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. If the government loses in the Federal Circuit, it is still possible that the Supreme Court's conservative justices could agree to hear the case and ultimately rule in Trump's favor. On the merits, that outcome would be hard to square with the conservative majority's stated commitment to textualism as a mode of statutory interpretation, as well as the major questions doctrine that was developed in recent years by the conservative justices, who used it in 2023 to strike down much of the Biden administration's student-loan forgiveness effort. In the student-loan forgiveness case, the conservative justices relied crucially on the fact that the program was estimated to cost taxpayers roughly $500 billion, according to a budget model from the University of Pennsylvania. They concluded that this warranted a particularly rigorous and stringent mode of statutory interpretation. The estimated cost to taxpayers in that case pales in comparison to the estimated cost for Americans resulting from Trump's tariffs, according to a model at Yale University. That model currently estimates that Trump's latest tariff framework will result in an average per household income loss of $2,400 this year alone, that it will result in a 0.5 percentage loss in real GDP this year and next year, and that the economy will lose nearly half a million jobs by the end of 2025. None of this has stopped the administration from plowing forward. At this point, the administration may be hoping for a victory at the Supreme Court (assuming they lose at the Federal Circuit) or, perhaps, simply planning to do as much as they can to advance their tariff policy before a day comes when it is definitively thrown out by the courts. They have already been aided in this regard by the Supreme Court, intentionally or otherwise. In mid-June, the two businesses that prevailed in federal district court in Washington asked the Supreme Court to short-circuit the appeals process and take the case up immediately for review. 'In light of the tariffs' massive impact on virtually every business and consumer across the Nation, and the unremitting whiplash caused by the unfettered tariffing power the President claims, challenges to the IEEPA tariffs cannot await the normal appellate process (even on an expedited timeline),' the companies' lawyers wrote. The companies' request was far from crazy, particularly given the fact that the conservative justices have moved quickly in a variety of major court challenges to the Trump administration's actions since Trump's inauguration. Three days later, however, the Supreme Court denied their request, with no explanation. Perhaps not coincidentally, those expedited rulings have favored the Trump administration, while in the case of Trump's tariffs, a critical mass of conservative justices may ultimately be compelled to rule against Trump — if, that is, they actually adhere to the interpretive and constitutional principles that they claim to follow. In the meantime — and as the administration has been struggling in the courts to defend its policy — the Trump administration is evidently moving forward undeterred. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@ Or contact tonight's author at akhardori@ What'd I Miss? — Trump demands firing of BLS chief after soft jobs report: President Donald Trump called for the ouster of the head of the Labor Department's statistical arm this afternoon after the latest monthly jobs report came in well under expectations. 'I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY,' Trump wrote in a social media post. 'She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified.' Trump reprised prior accusations that the Bureau of Labor Statistics under Commissioner Erika McEntarfer surreptitiously put out overly rosy jobs numbers at the tail end of the Biden administration that were subsequently revised in order to influence the election. Economists have roundly dismissed these claims as a misunderstanding of the agency's revision processes. — Huckabee, Witkoff visit US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation amid global outcry: Senior U.S. officials visited a distribution center for the American-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation today, pledging to report back to President Donald Trump about the foundation's operations and devise a plan to address starvation in the strip amid growing global outcry over the humanitarian crisis. U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and special envoy Steve Witkoff made a rare trip to Gaza today amid heightened pressure — including from within MAGA circles — to reconsider the administration's support for Israel's war on Hamas and intervene in Gaza's hunger crisis. — Corporation for Public Broadcasting shutting down: The Corporation for Public Broadcasting announced today it was shutting down its operations after President Donald Trump rescinded funding for the nonprofit, which it used to support public radio and TV stations around the country. The CPB — which was established by Congress decades ago as an independent nonprofit — said it will begin 'an orderly wind-down' after Trump signed a measure last month to claw back $1.1 billion in grants appropriated to CPB over the next two fiscal years. — Ghislaine Maxwell transferred to less restrictive prison after DOJ meeting: Days after sitting down with one of the highest-ranking members of the Justice Department, Ghislaine Maxwell has been transferred to a less restrictive minimum security federal prison camp in Texas, her attorney said. Maxwell's attorney David Oscar Markus said today she had been moved to Federal Prison Camp Bryan, a facility for female inmates in Southeast Texas. He declined further comment. Until this week, Maxwell, the onetime girlfriend of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, had been serving a 20-year sentence for her 2021 conviction for sex trafficking crimes in Florida, at FCI Tallahassee, a low-security prison. — Trump, escalating war of words with Russia's Medvedev, mobilizes two nuclear submarines: President Donald Trump said today he mobilized two nuclear submarines 'to be positioned in the appropriate regions' in response to threatening comments by Russia's former president Dmitry Medvedev. In a post on Truth Social, Trump said he was taking that action 'just in case these foolish and inflammatory statements are more than just that. Words are very important, and can often lead to unintended consequences, I hope this will not be one of those instances.' Medvedev on Thursday referenced Russia's nuclear capabilities amid an escalating battle on social media sparked by Trump's latest efforts to increase economic pressure on the Kremlin in hopes of reviving diplomatic efforts to end the war in Ukraine. AROUND THE WORLD RAISING THE BAR — Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni reacted with fury today as the EU's top court raised the threshold for member countries to reject asylum-seekers. The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) said EU nations may only create national lists of safe countries outside the bloc if they fully justify their assessments with public sources. According to the court, a country can only be considered 'safe' for repatriation if 'the entire population' is protected across all regions. Meloni called the court's decision 'surprising' and a power grab by EU judges. 'Once again, the judiciary, this time at the European level, claims spaces that do not belong to it, in the face of responsibilities that are political,' she said. SLOVENIA STEPS OUT— Slovenia became the first EU country to ban all weapons trade with Israel, citing the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The government also prohibited the transit of weapons to or from Israel through Slovenia, the administration in Ljubljana said in a statement Thursday. Slovenia said that it decided to act independently from the EU, as 'due to internal disagreements and disunity,' the bloc is unable to take action against Israel. Though the European Commission proposed partially suspending Israel's association agreement with the EU this week, member countries have yet to agree on it. Nightly Number RADAR SWEEP WEEKEND WARRIORS — Under the threat of Chinese invasion, more and more Taiwanese civilians are signing up for civil defense classes. US intelligence predicts that China will be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027 as China builds up its aircrafts and warships. Armed with airsoft guns that fire plastic pellets, men and women train on the weekends in converted garages and empty warehouses to prepare a civil resilience. Beyond armed defense, officials and private organizations have amped up drills for attacks on critical infrastructure and cyberattacks. Yian Lee reports on the 'soft militarization' of Taiwanese civilians for Bloomberg. Parting Image Jacqueline Munis contributed to this newsletter. Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here.
Washington Post
an hour ago
- Washington Post
Why Trump's tariffs are in trouble
It's impossible to look away from President Donald Trump's theatrical trade policy. Every day can bring a triumphant trade deal or a new tariff barrage. For markets and the news media, the minor detail of whether any of this is legal has faded into the background. Maybe not for much longer. On Thursday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit heard arguments on Trump's tariffs. The icy reception the administration received ought to have highlighted the policy's constitutional vulnerability. But that defect still isn't getting enough attention. Trump's claim to virtually unlimited tariffing power comes from the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The IEEPA is a sanctions and embargo law that doesn't even mention tariffs. No president invoked it to impose tariffs for 48 years after its passage, until Trump did so this year. The Constitution says Congress, not the president, has the power to 'lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises,' and 'regulate Commerce with foreign Nations.' The U.S. Court of International Trade ruled 3-0 in May that Trump had exceeded his powers under the IEEPA, prompting the president to lash out with unusual ferocity. But the Federal Circuit suspended that ruling to let appeals play out, leaving Trump's tariffs in effect, and the news media moved on. Thursday's argument suggests that the Federal Circuit's 'stay' decision wasn't a judgment on the merits. The 11-judge panel seemed skeptical that the IEEPA is a strong enough legal basis for the president to commandeer Congress's commercial and taxing powers. Congress has written intricate trade laws over the past century that detail under what circumstances, at what levels and for how long the president can impose tariffs. 'Why would the president ever rely on all of these trade statutes,' Judge Jimmie V. Reyna asked the Justice Department on Thursday, 'if he has, under IEEPA, this unbounded power?' The judge added, 'Your argument dislocates that entire U.S. trade-relief framework.' Put more bluntly: If Trump is right, what is the point of U.S. trade law? The lawful tax rate on any import is just whatever the president says it is on any given day. The Justice Department insisted that Trump's tariff power is not unlimited. But conveniently, it also insisted that the key limit — whether there is, in fact, a national emergency triggering the IEEPA — is not reviewable by the courts. The only real check on unilateral presidential tariffs would therefore be new legislation explicitly stripping the president of the powers he usurped. But the president is 'not likely to cabin his own authority by signing legislation,' Judge Timothy B. Dyk observed. Eight of the 11 judges on the Federal Circuit panel were appointed by Democrats, including the two quoted above, so its eventual ruling won't necessarily predict how the conservative-leaning Supreme Court will see the issue when the losing side appeals. But if the courts do eventually ratify the Trump administration's position, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that a key premise of the Constitution will have been inverted. Legal-process arguments are sometimes the province of academics and pedants. Not this one. As one amicus brief notes: The Constitution assigned fiscal powers to Congress rather than the president 'not as a formality, but as a structure of democratic accountability rooted in the issues that originally led to the creation of the United States.' The American colonies literally rebelled against Britain in part because it imposed tariffs without giving the colonists a say in Parliament. Congress can delegate power to the president, of course. But one theme of this Supreme Court's (conservative) jurisprudence in recent years is that when Congress delegates enormous powers, it must do so unambiguously. That 'major questions doctrine' is designed to force accountability. The Supreme Court's conservative majority has invoked it repeatedly against adventurous Democratic policies — voiding the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan as well as the Biden administration's orders barring evictions and forgiving student loans. Did Congress really delegate all its constitutional power over border taxes a half-century ago in the IEEPA when it said presidents can 'regulate … importation' during national emergencies? This delegation is at least as ambiguous as in past 'major questions' cases. Yet Trump is exploiting the law to make further-reaching changes to the U.S. economy than did the Democratic policies that failed the major-questions test at the Supreme Court. There appear to be three reasons so many smart people are nonetheless discounting the magnitude of the legal threat to Trump's tariffs. The first is the perception that the Supreme Court favors executive power, and it's true that Trump's executive-power claims have been on a winning streak at the high court in recent weeks. But there is a profound difference between presidential power over the executive branch — the so-called unitary executive theory — and presidential power to reach into the other branches. This court wants to protect core presidential powers, such as the power to remove subordinates, from interference. By the same token, it should want to carefully guard core congressional powers, such as the power to regulate commerce, from usurpation by the executive. The second reason to downplay the threat to tariffs is the expectation that the Supreme Court will shy away from intervening in 'foreign affairs.' Fair enough: The administration's claims that an adverse ruling would disrupt diplomatic negotiations will probably carry some weight. But though tariffs can be a tool of foreign affairs, they mechanically operate on U.S. companies within the borders of the United States, which must pay taxes on the products they import. President Harry S. Truman claimed foreign-affairs power to seize steel mills during the Korean War. The Supreme Court's 1952 ruling blocking that seizure is one of the court's most famous. Republicans might want to be careful about carving out a zone of excessive deference to presidents who claim 'foreign affairs' power to compel behavior by people and entities in the United States. Could a Democratic president impose Green New Deal policies and cite international climate diplomacy to win a pass from judges? What if the president claimed public health regulation was integral to national security and foreign affairs, since viruses cross borders? The third reason some expect Trump's tariffs to survive the Supreme Court is that the court's conservative majority either favors Trump as a matter of partisanship or is cowed by his rhetoric and the specter that he will defy judicial orders. It's certainly true that extralegal pressures affect the behavior of the Supreme Court, just as they affect any other institution. But consider that a ruling against Trump on tariffs would be extraordinarily difficult to defy. Courts might not be able to force Trump to return a wrongly deported immigrant, for example, or to withdraw the National Guard from a city. But if the Supreme Court invalidated a border tax, Customs and Border Protection could not continue to passively collect it from thousands of well-lawyered U.S. corporations. Many would simply refuse to pay. Moreover, if the Supreme Court is worried about its public standing, applying the major-questions doctrine against Republican as much as Democratic administrations might be the savvy long-term strategic move. Blessing Trump's tariff policy after blocking comparatively minor Democratic power grabs would strengthen perceptions that the Supreme Court's doctrines are applied asymmetrically, with unknown consequences the next time Democrats control the elected branches of government. The bottom line is that Trump's tariffs are on shaky legal ground. The administration is certainly preparing unilateral work-arounds in case of an adverse Supreme Court ruling. President Joe Biden tried other means of canceling student loans after the Supreme Court struck down his first attempt. But if Trump's trade deals are so great, why not insulate them from the courts by asking the GOP-controlled Congress to ratify them? The question answers itself: because Trump has no use for Congress. Which is precisely the legal and constitutional problem with his tariffs, and it isn't going away.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Corporation for Public Broadcasting to Shutter After Trump Cuts
(Bloomberg) -- The Corporation for Public Broadcasting said that it will begin to wind down operations after President Donald Trump signed a package of spending cuts that ended its federal funding. The World's Data Center Capital Has Residents Surrounded An Abandoned Art-Deco Landmark in Buffalo Awaits Revival We Should All Be Biking Along the Beach Budapest's Most Historic Site Gets a Controversial Rebuild San Francisco in Talks With Vanderbilt for Downtown Campus 'Despite the extraordinary efforts of millions of Americans who called, wrote, and petitioned Congress to preserve federal funding for CPB, we now face the difficult reality of closing our operations,' CPB President and CEO Patricia Harrison said in a statement Friday. 'CPB remains committed to fulfilling its fiduciary responsibilities and supporting our partners through this transition with transparency and care,' Harrison added. CPB said that it informed its employees that the majority of staff positions will end with the close of the fiscal year on Sept. 30, 2025. The corporation had 105 employees as of 2022. Last month, Congress clawed back $535 million in previously approved annual spending on CPB though 2027. The cuts were part of a $9 billion package of so-called rescissions inspired by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency. Musk left his role overseeing the federal cost-cutting effort in May. The law ended a half-century of funding for the corporation, which finances the Public Broadcasting System and National Public Radio. Those outlets receive a small portion of their funding from federal sources in addition to dollars from sponsors and individual donors. Supporters of public broadcasting warn the cuts to CPB will force the closure of smaller rural stations across the country. 'For over half a century, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has partnered with PBS and our member stations to serve communities large and small in every corner of the country,' Jason Phelps, a spokesman for PBS, said in a statement. 'As this remarkable institution winds down, PBS is committed to building on CPB's legacy and maintaining our service to the American people for years to come.' NPR President and CEO Katherine Maher said in a statement that the 'closure of CPB represents the loss of a major institution and decades of knowledge and expertise.' 'We will continue to respond to this crisis by stepping up to support locally owned, nonprofit public radio stations and local journalism across the country, working to maintain public media's promise of universal service, and upholding the highest standards for independent journalism and cultural programming in service of our nation,' Maher said. The nonprofit CPB's most recent tax return showed that it received 99.8% of its income from government grants. By law, more than 70% of that federal funding went directly to more than 1,500 local public radio and television stations, according to the corporation's financial statements. The typical station relies on CPB's federal funding for about 13% of its revenue. Public broadcasting has been a target of both cultural and fiscal conservatives for more than three decades, with complaints that its national programming and news often skewed to the left. 'The kind of money that's being wasted, and it's a very biased view,' Trump said in March. 'And I'd be honored to see it end.' (Updates to add PBS, NPR statements starting in 7th paragraph) How Podcast-Obsessed Tech Investors Made a New Media Industry Russia Builds a New Web Around Kremlin's Handpicked Super App Everyone Loves to Hate Wind Power. Scotland Found a Way to Make It Pay Off It's Not Just Tokyo and Kyoto: Tourists Descend on Rural Japan Cage-Free Eggs Are Booming in the US, Despite Cost and Trump's Efforts ©2025 Bloomberg L.P. Sign in to access your portfolio
