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> “Our great American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China, including bringing your companies HOME and making y

> “Our great American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China, including bringing your companies HOME and making your products in the USA.” What a weird tone. Is that a thing in the US? Can the president (legally) order companies "home"? Doesn't sound like "land of the free" to me.

jakewalker 7y ago
Absolutely not. It's not remotely a thing, and would not withstand any scrutiny whatsoever.
- coliveira 7y ago
  Except that it is happening right now, and I don't see politicians doing anything substantial to stop it.
  - krapp 7y ago
    There's nothing to stop. Trump no more has the authority to order U.S. businesses around than you or I. He's an authoritarian thug who still doesn't know how governing works.
    - coliveira 7y ago
      The president controls the defense apparatus, which can label any country they wish a "threat to national security", which according to laws enacted since 9/11 can prevent American companies to do business with other countries. In the post 9/11, trumpian world, economic freedom depends on the mood of the president.
      - krapp 7y ago
        I'm sure you feel this is a really strong argument to make but don't copy and paste replies in a thread like that, it's spamming the thread.
        coliveira 7y ago
        At least I have an argument, you have none but complaining.
        krapp 7y ago
        Alright, you want an argument? Just because the President has certain powers, doesn't mean he will be allowed to abuse those powers and remain unchecked. If Trump tried to force all American companies to stop doing business in China by declaring China a "national security threat," his efforts would be immediately met with a challenge from the courts and he would very likely be impeached or removed from office. What would not happen is the rest of the government simply throwing up their hands because "the president controls the defense apparatus." If it really worked that way, Trump would already have declared Mexico a national security threat, forced the government to fully fund the wall, seized all necessary lands via eminent domain and started building it by now.
        coliveira 7y ago
        It works so well that Trump is maintaining concentration camps where children are physically abused. And his appointments in the supreme court are letting him bypass congress and build a useless wall with money diverted from the military. If you think that this is normal, then you're part of the problem.
AimForTheBushes 7y ago
Maybe not home but can compel them not to do business with China, e.g. Iran.
- jakewalker 7y ago
  Not unilaterally, without any process.
hello_1234 7y ago
If he can set 25% tariff on everything imported from China, what's stopping him from setting 2500% tariff on everything? Wouldn't that effectively and immediately stop all trade with China?
- tathougies 7y ago
  No. American companies would still be allowed to sell to China. The constitution offers pretty much absolute protection when it comes to export tariffs.
  - ashelmire 7y ago
    That isn't the heart of the issue. The issue is US products being produced in China and sold in the US. We import > 500 billion from China and export under 130 billion to China.
    - belltaco 7y ago
      >We import > 500 billion from China and export under 130 billion to China. It's not so simple as, "Hey, lets pocket 500B - 130B = $370B and put it in the bank or spend in what we want". First of all, prices will increase, and production will move to other countries. If you ban imports from other countries, many things will become unaffordable to many people, which creates knock on effects. PCs and Smartphones getting more expensive means fewer people will use them, which means a smaller market for software. People will have less money to spend on, say, restaurants. People living off the $130B of exports will be out of jobs and some will go on unemployment and social welfare. Others will be hired with lesser pay, so will buy less. There will be so many knock on effects beyond this. Tesla is down 4% just today based on new tariffs announced by China for the future. We are already paying new subsidies to farmers, from taxpayer money that can used to, say, build super fast trains in the US like China has. https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-trump-farm-bailout-20190528-story.html https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-trump...
      - markbnj 7y ago
tathougies 7y ago
No, he cannot, but he can say whatever he likes, as we've seen. The constitution enables the institution of arbitrary import tariffs, but it offers absolute protection to American companies. Neither the president nor Congress is legally allowed to tax exports (Article 1, Section 9, Clause 5)
- coliveira 7y ago
  This is not "absolute protection". American companies import much more than they export, so if he can't do whatever he wants to imports, there is no economic freedom.
  - tathougies 7y ago
    There is no economic freedom when it comes to import. That's a founding principle of the country that no one should be surprised by.
    - coliveira 7y ago
      Funny that Americans indoctrinated the entire world into thinking that import barriers were not civilized. And then now we discover that this is in fact a "founding principle"... right at the moment when the country cannot keep up with the competition. How convenient.
      - tathougies 7y ago
        We didn't 'discover' it. America's constitution is one of the shortest in the world and written in very clear language. The text is available for free around the world. Being ignorant of its contents is completely 100% on you.
        coliveira 7y ago
        It seems that Americans are the ones who didn't know about this wonderful content for decades... only to rediscover now that it so important to restrict imports (when the country can't compete anymore, of course)!
wendyshu 7y ago
Despite the headline no it's not actually an order it's just a suggestion...
- mindthegap 7y ago
  It's not just the headline. As far as I understand, Trump said what I quoted.
  - wendyshu 7y ago
    He did indeed
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - zaroth 7y ago
    He said what you quoted, but then you implied he ordered companies out of China, which he did not do.
    - thrill 7y ago
      An order is still an order, whether it is legal or not.
openasocket 7y ago
No, it's not a thing. Generally speaking, the president can't do much here besides ask companies to do this. There might be some ways he could force companies to no longer do business with China, like declare sanctions against China, but they would be on shaky legal grounds. And by shaky legal grounds, I mean guaranteed to be challenged in court and go all the way to the Supreme Court.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- coliveira 7y ago
  > can't do much here besides ask companies to do this Incorrect, the president controls the defense apparatus, which can label any country they wish a "threat to national security", which according to laws enacted since 9/11 can prevent American companies to do business with other countries. In the post 9/11, trumpian world, economic freedom depends on the mood of the president.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > which according to laws enacted since 9/11 can prevent American companies to do business with other countries. The most relevant law is the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which was passed 34 years before 9/11.
  - openasocket 7y ago
    In my next sentence I mention that he could declare sanctions, with the caveat that it would be on pretty shaky legal grounds.
ksdale 7y ago
It is not a thing. The president doesn't have the authority to do this. There were some major lawsuits about this issue I believe around WWII relating to the redirection of certain industries to serve the war effort. If I recall correctly, the result was that the executive branch has basically no authority to do this barring something like a state of emergency. Anyone who knows more than me feel free to chime in!
ashelmire 7y ago
There are probably a few ways the president could do it unilaterally, legally: 1) Raise tariffs to absurd levels (like, 10000% tax on anything from China). 2) Some sort of national defense justification. He could probably put all employees, companies, and executives on terrorism or customs watch lists and make life difficult for them. 3) Use existing sanctions on other nations as a way to forbid doing business with various entities in China. There's probably also another way to do it that would, presumably, be illegal: 4) Unilaterally blockade the nation, since he's chief of the armed forces (this is an act of war).
- wyldfire 7y ago
  > that would, presumably, be illegal: It's not worth enumerating the illegal things that the President can do. It's not bounded by anything.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > There's probably also another way to do it that would, presumably, be illegal: Whether the President commiting acts of war unilaterally is illegal depends on disputed Constitutional questions, such as the scope of Presidential inherent powers and the Constitutionality of the delegation of powers to the President under the War Powers Act.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  Can the president unilaterally decide the levels of tariffs on imports? Without congressional oversight or veto?
moate 7y ago
It carries the exact same amount of legal weight as me ordering Trump to vacate the presidency immediately. It's an extremely weird tone, but this has been an extremely weird presidency.
cronix 7y ago
"immediately start looking" does not equal "ordering companies home."
- thrill 7y ago
  "hereby ordered" = "hereby ordered"
  - jaredhansen 7y ago
    "hereby ordered" means exactly nothing without legal authority behind it. The President can't just "order" companies to randomly do things. I mean, he can, but they don't have to comply, and there's no legal penalty if they don't.
    - mindthegap 7y ago
      It still carries a lot of weight if the president says something like this. Legal or not. And since it doesn't seem to be legal it is actually worse that the head of a country uses this sort of language.
      - Balgair 7y ago
        Understatment of the year? Yes, Donny Two-Scoops is indeed not using language correctly [0]. Watch the video there. It's really something. [0] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/donald-trump-sentence/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/donald-trump-sentence/
  - cronix 7y ago
    I was responding to the quote > Can the president (legally) order companies "home"? He ordered them to start looking if you want to be pedantic, which still does not "order companies home," as was stated.
  - markbnj 7y ago
    > "hereby ordered" = "hereby ordered" Furthermore, doesn't "hereby" mean specifically "this thing that you are now reading/hearing/seeing is the instrument of the order?" In other words is he issuing an order via a tweet?
justaguyhere 7y ago
The other weird thing politicians do is add the word "great" to everything - great state, great company, great nation, great this, great that... to the point that the effectiveness of the word is lost.
- umvi 7y ago
  Lots of politicians/governments do this as some form of self-congratulatory propaganda, maybe? Notice how any country with the words "democratic" or "republic" in the name are actually dictatorships? And it's an extra tyrannical dictatorship if it has both.
- bitwize 7y ago
  Government has asserted its own greatness since antiquity; consider how we address kings as "Your Majesty". Sometimes, the claim that the local government is great was encoded into law as required to be acknowledged as fact. In monarchies of the past (and sometimes of the present) denying the King's majesty was a serious crime called lese majesty.
bcheung 7y ago
If it was feasible for companies to manufacture in the US they would. Effectively blocking China without a concomitant investment in US manufacturing is a lose/lose situation.
- zaroth 7y ago
  Of course it’s feasible. It’s just marginally more expensive. A combination of tighter labor, environment, and safety regulations, and a higher cost of living. The tariffs are exactly what will spur the investment in US manufacturing, and the marginal benefit of manufacturing in China and then shipping the end product halfway around the world eroded away.
  - Cyberdog 7y ago
    For certain definitions of “marginally,” I suppose. And keep in mind many of the more complex things manufactured in China are done so from components themselves manufactured in China or elsewhere in east Asia, so either those would also have to be manufactured here, or they’d have to be imported, and we’re back where we started. And so on all the way down to the raw materials.
    - zaroth 7y ago
      Marginal cost is an economic term. I’m not using the term colloquially to mean small or insignificant. Of course manufacturing is an ecosystem which builds up over time, with positive feedback loops where investment drives further efficiency throughout the supply chain. All the more reason to raise tariffs now, and hope that they stay high for enough years to stop the ongoing atrophy in the US ecosystem. It’s not just because China’s an unfair competitor from a labor rights and environmental impact perspective. It’s also a massive national security issue.
    - TMWNN 7y ago
      >For certain definitions of “marginally,” I suppose. The choice isn't just "manufacture in China" or "manufacture in the US". According to Peter Zeihan's The Accidental Superpower (2014), manufacturing in China has gone from being one quarter as expensive as in Mexico to 25% more expensive. He expects that the US shale and natural gas boom will further reduce costs in Mexico and the US. Also see "[Why China should follow Trump’s example and cut taxes](http://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2056874/why-china-should-follow-trumps-example-and-cut-taxes)" http://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2056874/why-ch.... Quote: "As far as manufacturing is concerned, according to Cao, everything is cheaper in America apart from manpower."
root_axis 7y ago
The "order" does not have legal power, but it's not illegal for him to say it.
dragonwriter 7y ago
> Is that a thing in the US? In that “Donald Trump being President and saying whatever he wants” is a thing in the US, yes. > Can the president (legally) order companies "home"? There may be statutory bases on which the President could adopt emergency sanctions which would have that effect (but probably not that effect alone), but a tweet simply ordering the companies to behave a certain way certainly is not, even if such authority exists, a valid way of invoking it. > Doesn't sound like "land of the free" to me. Donald Trump's statements often have no recognizable relationship to the legal powers of the Presidency, and often aren't, even when superficially announcing substantive action, even followed up with by any action by the administration (whether such action would or would not be within the law), or are followed up with action that is very different in substance than the statement would suggest.
zaroth 7y ago
At this point people should really understand how to read a statement from Trump. It actually is important to read all the words. “Hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative” does not mean he is trying to say companies must cease importing from China, even if that’s what the headline will read tomorrow. It simply says that companies need to start looking for alternatives to China. Trump is saying it’s going to get increasingly expensive to import all our stuff from China going forward. Can he make things increasingly expensive to import from China? As long as he’s President, yes he can.
- markbnj 7y ago
  In what world does "hereby ordered" typically precede a bit of friendly advice? "All my relatives are hereby ordered to depart a day early for the annual Christmas gathering, as storms are predicted for the I-80 corridor."
  - zaroth 7y ago
    It’s not friendly advice, that’s the point! Businesses don’t typically like it very much when someone makes their supply lines double-digit more expensive overnight. He’s putting companies on notice. He’s doing it with language which will get the statement widely reported (and unfortunately mis-reported). But carefully reading what he is actually saying, you can see he’s not actually ordering anything. That’s the point. In your hypothetical example you would need to change two things. One, it would read “All my relatives are hereby ordered to starting looking at flights a day early...” And two, you would have to be God, because in that example you would be the one controlling the weather.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  Reading all the words is a good idea. But even after doing so, you're left with one big problem: He does not have the authority to order that.
bediger4000 7y ago
I agree with you on the weird tone issue. It very much reminds me of proclamations (usually Facebook, but going back to Usenet) made by folks widely regarded as not all present. The random all-caps words are part of it, as is the word "hereby".

jakewalker 7y ago

Absolutely not. It's not remotely a thing, and would not withstand any scrutiny whatsoever.

coliveira 7y ago
Except that it is happening right now, and I don't see politicians doing anything substantial to stop it.
- krapp 7y ago
  There's nothing to stop. Trump no more has the authority to order U.S. businesses around than you or I. He's an authoritarian thug who still doesn't know how governing works.
  - coliveira 7y ago
    The president controls the defense apparatus, which can label any country they wish a "threat to national security", which according to laws enacted since 9/11 can prevent American companies to do business with other countries. In the post 9/11, trumpian world, economic freedom depends on the mood of the president.
    - krapp 7y ago
      I'm sure you feel this is a really strong argument to make but don't copy and paste replies in a thread like that, it's spamming the thread.
      - coliveira 7y ago
        At least I have an argument, you have none but complaining.
        krapp 7y ago
        Alright, you want an argument? Just because the President has certain powers, doesn't mean he will be allowed to abuse those powers and remain unchecked. If Trump tried to force all American companies to stop doing business in China by declaring China a "national security threat," his efforts would be immediately met with a challenge from the courts and he would very likely be impeached or removed from office. What would not happen is the rest of the government simply throwing up their hands because "the president controls the defense apparatus." If it really worked that way, Trump would already have declared Mexico a national security threat, forced the government to fully fund the wall, seized all necessary lands via eminent domain and started building it by now.
        coliveira 7y ago
        It works so well that Trump is maintaining concentration camps where children are physically abused. And his appointments in the supreme court are letting him bypass congress and build a useless wall with money diverted from the military. If you think that this is normal, then you're part of the problem.

AimForTheBushes 7y ago

Maybe not home but can compel them not to do business with China, e.g. Iran.

jakewalker 7y ago
Not unilaterally, without any process.

hello_1234 7y ago

If he can set 25% tariff on everything imported from China, what's stopping him from setting 2500% tariff on everything? Wouldn't that effectively and immediately stop all trade with China?

tathougies 7y ago
No. American companies would still be allowed to sell to China. The constitution offers pretty much absolute protection when it comes to export tariffs.
- ashelmire 7y ago
  That isn't the heart of the issue. The issue is US products being produced in China and sold in the US. We import > 500 billion from China and export under 130 billion to China.
  - belltaco 7y ago
    >We import > 500 billion from China and export under 130 billion to China. It's not so simple as, "Hey, lets pocket 500B - 130B = $370B and put it in the bank or spend in what we want". First of all, prices will increase, and production will move to other countries. If you ban imports from other countries, many things will become unaffordable to many people, which creates knock on effects. PCs and Smartphones getting more expensive means fewer people will use them, which means a smaller market for software. People will have less money to spend on, say, restaurants. People living off the $130B of exports will be out of jobs and some will go on unemployment and social welfare. Others will be hired with lesser pay, so will buy less. There will be so many knock on effects beyond this. Tesla is down 4% just today based on new tariffs announced by China for the future. We are already paying new subsidies to farmers, from taxpayer money that can used to, say, build super fast trains in the US like China has. https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-trump-farm-bailout-20190528-story.html https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-trump...
    - markbnj 7y ago

tathougies 7y ago

No, he cannot, but he can say whatever he likes, as we've seen. The constitution enables the institution of arbitrary import tariffs, but it offers absolute protection to American companies. Neither the president nor Congress is legally allowed to tax exports (Article 1, Section 9, Clause 5)

coliveira 7y ago
This is not "absolute protection". American companies import much more than they export, so if he can't do whatever he wants to imports, there is no economic freedom.
- tathougies 7y ago
  There is no economic freedom when it comes to import. That's a founding principle of the country that no one should be surprised by.
  - coliveira 7y ago
    Funny that Americans indoctrinated the entire world into thinking that import barriers were not civilized. And then now we discover that this is in fact a "founding principle"... right at the moment when the country cannot keep up with the competition. How convenient.
    - tathougies 7y ago
      We didn't 'discover' it. America's constitution is one of the shortest in the world and written in very clear language. The text is available for free around the world. Being ignorant of its contents is completely 100% on you.
      - coliveira 7y ago
        It seems that Americans are the ones who didn't know about this wonderful content for decades... only to rediscover now that it so important to restrict imports (when the country can't compete anymore, of course)!

wendyshu 7y ago

Despite the headline no it's not actually an order it's just a suggestion...

mindthegap 7y ago
It's not just the headline. As far as I understand, Trump said what I quoted.
- wendyshu 7y ago
  He did indeed
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- zaroth 7y ago
  He said what you quoted, but then you implied he ordered companies out of China, which he did not do.
  - thrill 7y ago
    An order is still an order, whether it is legal or not.

openasocket 7y ago

No, it's not a thing. Generally speaking, the president can't do much here besides ask companies to do this. There might be some ways he could force companies to no longer do business with China, like declare sanctions against China, but they would be on shaky legal grounds. And by shaky legal grounds, I mean guaranteed to be challenged in court and go all the way to the Supreme Court.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
coliveira 7y ago
> can't do much here besides ask companies to do this Incorrect, the president controls the defense apparatus, which can label any country they wish a "threat to national security", which according to laws enacted since 9/11 can prevent American companies to do business with other countries. In the post 9/11, trumpian world, economic freedom depends on the mood of the president.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > which according to laws enacted since 9/11 can prevent American companies to do business with other countries. The most relevant law is the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which was passed 34 years before 9/11.
- openasocket 7y ago
  In my next sentence I mention that he could declare sanctions, with the caveat that it would be on pretty shaky legal grounds.

ksdale 7y ago

It is not a thing. The president doesn't have the authority to do this. There were some major lawsuits about this issue I believe around WWII relating to the redirection of certain industries to serve the war effort. If I recall correctly, the result was that the executive branch has basically no authority to do this barring something like a state of emergency. Anyone who knows more than me feel free to chime in!

ashelmire 7y ago

There are probably a few ways the president could do it unilaterally, legally: 1) Raise tariffs to absurd levels (like, 10000% tax on anything from China). 2) Some sort of national defense justification. He could probably put all employees, companies, and executives on terrorism or customs watch lists and make life difficult for them. 3) Use existing sanctions on other nations as a way to forbid doing business with various entities in China. There's probably also another way to do it that would, presumably, be illegal: 4) Unilaterally blockade the nation, since he's chief of the armed forces (this is an act of war).

wyldfire 7y ago
> that would, presumably, be illegal: It's not worth enumerating the illegal things that the President can do. It's not bounded by anything.
dragonwriter 7y ago
> There's probably also another way to do it that would, presumably, be illegal: Whether the President commiting acts of war unilaterally is illegal depends on disputed Constitutional questions, such as the scope of Presidential inherent powers and the Constitutionality of the delegation of powers to the President under the War Powers Act.
AnimalMuppet 7y ago
Can the president unilaterally decide the levels of tariffs on imports? Without congressional oversight or veto?

moate 7y ago

It carries the exact same amount of legal weight as me ordering Trump to vacate the presidency immediately. It's an extremely weird tone, but this has been an extremely weird presidency.

cronix 7y ago

"immediately start looking" does not equal "ordering companies home."

thrill 7y ago
"hereby ordered" = "hereby ordered"
- jaredhansen 7y ago
  "hereby ordered" means exactly nothing without legal authority behind it. The President can't just "order" companies to randomly do things. I mean, he can, but they don't have to comply, and there's no legal penalty if they don't.
  - mindthegap 7y ago
    It still carries a lot of weight if the president says something like this. Legal or not. And since it doesn't seem to be legal it is actually worse that the head of a country uses this sort of language.
    - Balgair 7y ago
      Understatment of the year? Yes, Donny Two-Scoops is indeed not using language correctly [0]. Watch the video there. It's really something. [0] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/donald-trump-sentence/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/donald-trump-sentence/
- cronix 7y ago
  I was responding to the quote > Can the president (legally) order companies "home"? He ordered them to start looking if you want to be pedantic, which still does not "order companies home," as was stated.
- markbnj 7y ago
  > "hereby ordered" = "hereby ordered" Furthermore, doesn't "hereby" mean specifically "this thing that you are now reading/hearing/seeing is the instrument of the order?" In other words is he issuing an order via a tweet?

justaguyhere 7y ago

The other weird thing politicians do is add the word "great" to everything - great state, great company, great nation, great this, great that... to the point that the effectiveness of the word is lost.

umvi 7y ago
Lots of politicians/governments do this as some form of self-congratulatory propaganda, maybe? Notice how any country with the words "democratic" or "republic" in the name are actually dictatorships? And it's an extra tyrannical dictatorship if it has both.
bitwize 7y ago
Government has asserted its own greatness since antiquity; consider how we address kings as "Your Majesty". Sometimes, the claim that the local government is great was encoded into law as required to be acknowledged as fact. In monarchies of the past (and sometimes of the present) denying the King's majesty was a serious crime called lese majesty.

bcheung 7y ago

If it was feasible for companies to manufacture in the US they would. Effectively blocking China without a concomitant investment in US manufacturing is a lose/lose situation.

zaroth 7y ago
Of course it’s feasible. It’s just marginally more expensive. A combination of tighter labor, environment, and safety regulations, and a higher cost of living. The tariffs are exactly what will spur the investment in US manufacturing, and the marginal benefit of manufacturing in China and then shipping the end product halfway around the world eroded away.
- Cyberdog 7y ago
  For certain definitions of “marginally,” I suppose. And keep in mind many of the more complex things manufactured in China are done so from components themselves manufactured in China or elsewhere in east Asia, so either those would also have to be manufactured here, or they’d have to be imported, and we’re back where we started. And so on all the way down to the raw materials.
  - zaroth 7y ago
    Marginal cost is an economic term. I’m not using the term colloquially to mean small or insignificant. Of course manufacturing is an ecosystem which builds up over time, with positive feedback loops where investment drives further efficiency throughout the supply chain. All the more reason to raise tariffs now, and hope that they stay high for enough years to stop the ongoing atrophy in the US ecosystem. It’s not just because China’s an unfair competitor from a labor rights and environmental impact perspective. It’s also a massive national security issue.
  - TMWNN 7y ago
    >For certain definitions of “marginally,” I suppose. The choice isn't just "manufacture in China" or "manufacture in the US". According to Peter Zeihan's The Accidental Superpower (2014), manufacturing in China has gone from being one quarter as expensive as in Mexico to 25% more expensive. He expects that the US shale and natural gas boom will further reduce costs in Mexico and the US. Also see "[Why China should follow Trump’s example and cut taxes](http://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2056874/why-china-should-follow-trumps-example-and-cut-taxes)" http://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2056874/why-ch.... Quote: "As far as manufacturing is concerned, according to Cao, everything is cheaper in America apart from manpower."

root_axis 7y ago

The "order" does not have legal power, but it's not illegal for him to say it.

dragonwriter 7y ago

> Is that a thing in the US? In that “Donald Trump being President and saying whatever he wants” is a thing in the US, yes. > Can the president (legally) order companies "home"? There may be statutory bases on which the President could adopt emergency sanctions which would have that effect (but probably not that effect alone), but a tweet simply ordering the companies to behave a certain way certainly is not, even if such authority exists, a valid way of invoking it. > Doesn't sound like "land of the free" to me. Donald Trump's statements often have no recognizable relationship to the legal powers of the Presidency, and often aren't, even when superficially announcing substantive action, even followed up with by any action by the administration (whether such action would or would not be within the law), or are followed up with action that is very different in substance than the statement would suggest.

zaroth 7y ago

At this point people should really understand how to read a statement from Trump. It actually is important to read all the words. “Hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative” does not mean he is trying to say companies must cease importing from China, even if that’s what the headline will read tomorrow. It simply says that companies need to start looking for alternatives to China. Trump is saying it’s going to get increasingly expensive to import all our stuff from China going forward. Can he make things increasingly expensive to import from China? As long as he’s President, yes he can.

markbnj 7y ago
In what world does "hereby ordered" typically precede a bit of friendly advice? "All my relatives are hereby ordered to depart a day early for the annual Christmas gathering, as storms are predicted for the I-80 corridor."
- zaroth 7y ago
  It’s not friendly advice, that’s the point! Businesses don’t typically like it very much when someone makes their supply lines double-digit more expensive overnight. He’s putting companies on notice. He’s doing it with language which will get the statement widely reported (and unfortunately mis-reported). But carefully reading what he is actually saying, you can see he’s not actually ordering anything. That’s the point. In your hypothetical example you would need to change two things. One, it would read “All my relatives are hereby ordered to starting looking at flights a day early...” And two, you would have to be God, because in that example you would be the one controlling the weather.
AnimalMuppet 7y ago
Reading all the words is a good idea. But even after doing so, you're left with one big problem: He does not have the authority to order that.

bediger4000 7y ago

I agree with you on the weird tone issue. It very much reminds me of proclamations (usually Facebook, but going back to Usenet) made by folks widely regarded as not all present. The random all-caps words are part of it, as is the word "hereby".