Trump has other tariff tricks up his sleeve
After the SCOTUS decision against Trump’s tariffs comes this:
Among the options he mentioned were parts of some existing laws, and hinted that he would “sign an order later today to impose a 10% global tariff over and above our tariffs already being charged… We’re also initiating several sections, 301 and other investigations to protect our country from unfair trading practices of other countries and companies.”
Pres. Trump added that “[o]ther alternatives will now be used to replace the ones that the court incorrectly rejected.”
It is now official, with the White House releasing the text of a new proclamation signed by the president, in which he “invok[es] his authority under section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974” to impose the 10 percent tariffs, beginning Feb. 24, for 150 days.
Trump also signed a separate executive order that “reaffirmed and continued the suspension of duty-free de minimis treatment for low-value shipments, including goods shipped through the international postal system, which will also be subject to the temporary import duty imposed under section 122.”
In an additional action, according to the White House, “the President has directed the Office of the United States Trade Representative to use its section 301 authority to investigate certain unreasonable and discriminatory acts, policies, and practices that burden or restrict U.S. commerce.”
I can’t predict which of these will be found constitutional, or if any will be, but I think we can safely predict that Democrats will challenge them ASAP.
I’ve got a question, though: why weren’t these statutes used in the first place, instead of authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act? It’s my impression – without being expert on the law and precedent involved – that these orders probably have a better chance of getting through SCOTUS.
[NOTE: Here’s a piece about Kavanaugh’s dissent in yesterday’s tariff decision by SCOTUS.]
I believe these have more procedural hoops to go through than IEEPA.
Kavanaugh in his dissent ‘road map’ alluded to these processes.
“I’ve got a question, though: why weren’t these statutes used in the first place, instead of authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act?”
I’ve had the same question all along. The EOs could have cited to two or more statutes as appropriate. On the other hand, maybe it was a case of avoiding all eggs in one basket.
Watt, Trump said the other statutes (is that the correct term?) take more time, and he needed the ability to act quickly.
Also, the others are not as flexible or open-ended.
Makes sense to me.
When dealing with foreign leaders — many whom have a level of TDS — quick actions truly helped him get decent deals. IMO.
…
Oh: Griffin basically said what I said, but more succinctly. I read it late. Lol.
Go Griffin!!
I had to laugh about my lefty friends crowing about how SCOTUS finally reigned in that power mad Trump. Not a word today about the new tariffs. They are so predictable and sad.
I have been stymied in finding excellent insights into the tariff issue.
Therefore, let me LINK to a fresh take on Trumponomics and geostrategy. Big Picture thinking that’s both optimistic and yet cautionary.
Michael Every was an economic strategist for the Dutch bank Rabobank (my regular reads of him were at Zerohedge. He left, but he’s back again.
Peter Boghossian hosts Every because an historical analogy the latter makes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JHrddtDqbA Trump is as impotent of an American change agent as Reagan was. Every, by contrast calls him the Reverse Gorbachev! Here’s a print based companion.
“Michael Every, Senior Global Strategist at Rabobank, recently published a very interesting analysis of how and why in his second term President Donald Trump is trying to shift the U.S. system from consumption and financialization to capital investment and military production.
“While we don’t necessarily buy Mr. Every’s analogy with the shift in the Russian/Soviet economy after the failure of glasnost and perestroika, we do agree this shift is entailing radical changes and the comparison is useful.”
https://conservativehq.com/post/trumponomics-a-fusion-of-national-security-and-economic-security-strategy-1
A thought piece on Trump’s hits and calling out near misses. That’s typical Every Big Picture view.
Physicsguy… Indeed!
Rolled my eyes so hard, I can’t find them!
…
I’m still frustrated that so many blame tariffs for grocery store prices being higher than mid-covid.
They have not a lick of trouble ignoring the other economic factors such as: higher wages forced into every low-skilled job sector by leftists in power, and the relentless retail theft costs that retailers quit totally absorbing (– worse in blue cities that are wildly soft on such crimes!)
And drought … A real factor in the higher beef costs.
Etc.
None of that matters! Nope.
It’s the magic of dictator Trump.
As Griffin said the other options all require time-consuming administrative process. Dershowitz argues the administration made a losing argument to the Court when they had a winning alternative:
“Article I of the Constitution says that duties and taxes can be imposed only by Congress, and Congress can delegate that authority to the president,” Dershowitz said. “But if you argue that tariffs can be a weapon of foreign policy, a weapon of diplomacy, a weapon of preventing war, then it’s an Article II power of the president, and Congress has no power to limit it.”
https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/alan-dershowitz-newsmax-donald-trump/2026/02/20/id/1246891/
Not the first time DOJ has lost a case they should have won.
Wow. Listening and re-listening to Every’s interview, I notice that the “chapter” or time stamps in this 61m Big Picture take are missing! In sum, this is an astounding take to me in its coherence and good sense.
Thus, as a teaser to induce your listen until the end (61m) from the last one at 39m, let me outline the 22m payoffs!
As Mr Spock says without irony, “Fascinating.” Truly. And powerful, I must add.
41m Trump’s Tariff-style regime is in America’s DNA. It’s the 19th century, pre-World War II model of international trade descended from the Founder, Hamilton. But the incentive structure offered in it are more attractive and more mutually beneficial, internationally.
49m Peter asks are Trump tariff’s beneficial? Or not?
Every says it’s complicated. But what’s worse is that the anti-tariff
Trump Hater’s are speaking straight past the Trump vision thing.
55m An old insight from Every asks “Star Wars versus Star Trek?” Are we going towards to Star Wars future? Fraught with conflict and wars. Or a prosperous, exploring, high human potential Star Trek future, with AI and general purpose robots?
Peter note’s Musks goal to put data centers in space. Every replies what do you do when an adversary takes out that data center in space? How is it going to be protected? He concludes that until we get to cheap and truly abundant energy production, we’re going to have more Star Wars than Star Trek from time to time.
Truly, profound and timely insights.
Another link with a lawyer’s perspective on this topic: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/tariff-turnabout-saturday-february
The lead portion discusses this. Interesting take. TLDR: the Trump team is playing a long game and it’s not JUST about tariffs.
My take:
The laser dot lingers, and having lingered, moves on …
One needs to use the right tool when distracting cats. I figure the alternatives were prepared long ago. What next? I don’t know. But I would be surprised if preparations were not already being discussed. Trump has got the smartest presidential team I’ve seen in my lifetime. Some presidents may have been smarter, but none have made better cabinet picks.
That said, things will be different in six months. Perhaps what we see are shaping operations.
“But if you argue that tariffs can be a weapon of foreign policy, a weapon of diplomacy, a weapon of preventing war, then it’s an Article II power of the president, and Congress has no power to limit it.”
I thought of that myself, but with the suspicion that the court opinion was aimed at defusing that very interpretation. That is, the majority of the court wanted to limit his power and took it off the table. Which is not to say that it won’t be argued in a future case. I expect more suites as this goes forward.
TJ Olsen, re; Boghossian’s interview of Every.
Right off the bat Every says this:
Why is it inflationary? One of Trump’s goals is to reduce global oil prices from $60-65 to $50. How could that be done? By increasing oil production. We’re pretty much at maximum production, but there are two sources that could affect oil prices– Venezuela and Iran (and Russia, but that’s a separate issue). Both have large supplies which right now are being choked by sanctions– which benefits China since they buy that oil at a discount. What if we could take the sanctions off and both countries increase production. This will affect global oil prices and China will now have to pay more for the oil from these two countries.
If anything that will be deflationary.
He’s agrees that the US needs to re-industrialize. He said:
I’m not sure why it’s an either or question– financialization or industrialization. Why can’t it be both.
That’s as far as I’ve gotten, but it appears he understands what Trump’s approach is.
As to your comment about Musk’s space data centers, Starlink has made 144,000 object avoidance maneuvers last year. This isn’t just space debris. In fact SpaceX is developing their own system to track space objects that will give them better real time data to do those types of maneuvers.
Another attempt to kill Trump:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15582455/secret-service-mar-lago-man-shot-killed-trump.html
Richard, what a wicked URL the Daily Mail decided to use. If people didn’t know the news already, that URL reads like Trump was killed.
I wonder what discussion was like, for them to choose that!
— crasey
Yeah, but there’s a huge kicker in that. Generally, the Constitution puts Congress in primary charge of money issues and trade policy (which is why the whole unconstitutional farce of ‘trade promotion authority’ exists). That interpretation of Article II would give the President a de facto power to step in and take over a big chunk of that at will.
Even I would hesitate to ascribe unilateral, unlimited Article II powers over tariffs to the President, if I were a SCOTUS justice. I can even see some reason in some of the SCOTUS’ recent ruling about the tariffs under IEEPA. It really is a very sloppily written law, as a GOP Congressmen pointed out a day or two ago.
— TJ Olsen
The Star Trek future (at least before Gene Roddenberry got a bad case of the lefty daydreamy) had its share of wars, too.
Of the two futures outlined, which is more likely? The Star Wars one, because that’s human nature. If and when we expand out into the Solar System and the Galaxy (assuming FTL turns out to be possible after all), war and conflict and all the other ills of Man will go with us because that’s what human beings do. There’s no escape from the Fall of Man. We may also have the good stuff too, though I would argue that AGI is not desirable at all, but we won’t evade the bad. We can minimize it, but that’s all we can do.
Marlene wrote “If people didn’t know the news already, that URL reads like Trump was killed.”
I don’t know how URLs are chosen. Maybe it was just sloppiness, AI, or poor English?
I saw a headline today on Google News, something like “Secret Service Shoots Dead Man Who Breached Mara-Lago.” 🙂