Talk of executive overreach these days usually involves worries that President Trump will declare a national emergency to fund his border wall.
There’s another issue to worry about here: Trump’s White House is looking for more ways to unilaterally hike taxes.
According to a Bloomberg report, various administration organs have been working with a few House Republicans on a bill known as the U.S. Reciprocal Trade Act. That bill would reportedly grant the president “broad authority to increase U.S. tariffs if he considers other countries’ tariff and non-tariff measures to be too restrictive.”
The president could then use those powers to impose tariffs without approval from Congress and without the national security justification he currently relies on. In theory, that would push other countries to make it easier for U.S. companies to gain access to markets where nontariff barriers such as local regulations or customs make trade difficult.
That wouldn’t be a bad thing. Promoting free trade and eliminating barriers is good for business and builds prosperity around the world.
But, the power to fight such trade barriers should rest with Congress as laid out in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution: “The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes [and] duties” and “to regulate commerce with foreign nations.”
Already Congress has given up some of those powers in both Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 and Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. It is under those provisions that Trump has been able to impose his steel and aluminum tariffs, as well as implement tariffs on Chinese goods.
Realizing too late just how much power those laws gave the president, some congressional Republicans have tried to rein it in. Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., introduced legislation in the last congress that would curtail presidential powers on tariffs, although it was unsuccessful. In July, the Senate also voted 88-11 in support of a nonbinding resolution warning the president not to abuse his tariff powers.
But the proverbial cat is already out of the bag, and as was made clear last year, Congress is going to have a hard time taking back powers already given up.
If Trump does pitch the U.S. Reciprocal Trade Act, both Democrats sympathetic to Trump’s trade agenda and Republicans wary of criticizing their man in the Oval Office should view the seemingly permanent transfer of trade war power as a warning. Congress has power over trade for a reason. As the trade war stalemate with China has proven, tariffs are blunt weapons with real consequences and should no be imposed on a whim.
