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I'm not a lawyer or even close to it, but why wouldn't the trump admin use the tariff act of 1930? quote: "Whenever the President shall find as a fact that any
by mangoman 1y ago
I'm not a lawyer or even close to it, but why wouldn't the trump admin use the tariff act of 1930? quote:
"Whenever the President shall find as a fact that any foreign country places any burden or disadvantage upon the commerce of the United States by any of the unequal impositions or discriminations aforesaid, he shall, when he finds that the public interest will be served thereby, by proclamation specify and declare such new or additional rate or rates of duty as he shall determine will offset such burden or disadvantage, not to exceed 50 per centum ad valorem or its equivalent, on any products of, or on articles imported in a vessel of, such foreign country"
it does cap it at 50%, but I mean it seems like a much easier way to justify the tariff. is there something else about it that isn't as practical (other than being almost 100 years old)
- Simulacra 1y agoThat's probably coming next.
- bilbo0s 1y agoit does cap it at 50% Pretty sure you're answering your own question.
- mangoman 1y ago...sigh... i mean i guess it really is just about saying they _can_ do it instead of actually _trying to do it_....
- growlNark 1y ago[flagged]
- curt15 1y ago> (other than being almost 100 years old) Age alone shouldn't disqualify a law. The law above all other laws, aka the Constitution, is more than 200 years old.
- lovich 1y agoThe Constitution as it stood 200 years ago is not the Constitution as it stands today. Comparing an unmodified law based on age is not the same as comparing a mutable documents original age
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- Aloisius 1y agoUnmodified law? The law in question has been amended many, many, many times in the last 100 years. For goodness sake, the original law set specific tariffs for 20,000 different goods. Little of the original law still exists unmodified.
- wredcoll 1y agoPeople love to say things like this, but much like electing an 80 year old president, it should perhaps be a trigger for a more thorough evaluation.
- iamtheworstdev 1y agoi don't think anyone would disagree that a law can "age out", but simply ignoring it because it's old versus revisiting it's intent and modifying/removing/etc are two very different strategies.
- aiforecastthway 1y agoIn this case, age is not what disqualifies the law. Rather, what renders the law inapplicable to this situation is some combination of: 1. another statute that super-cedes the 1930 statute because it specifically limits Presidential emergency powers in the context of balance-of-trade issues. See around p. 35 of the slip opinion. 2. The Constitution itself, which limits Congress's ability to cede its own powers.
- rayiner 1y agoThe Tariff Act of 1930 reflects the duality between the President’s executive power to conduct foreign policy and Congress’s legislative power to set taxes. Until the early 20th century, tariffs were the primary mechanism for raising federal revenue. So Congress viewed tariffs as a tax, within Congress’s purview. But the 1930 Tariff Act also recognizes that tariffs are also a tool of foreign policy, which is within the President’s purview.
- mangoman 1y agoRight. this whole episode is about foreign policy, why not use the act that is meant for it?
- bilbo0s 1y agoUm.. Because 50% maximum. How would that work when you want a 145% tariff?
- magicalhippo 1y agoApply it thrice, of course.
- SlightlyLeftPad 1y agoI think what’s actually happened in reality is that Congress intentionally gave the President unrestricted authority over both of these things and with that, immunity, or in other words the power to ignore court rulings.
- Electricniko 1y agoRegulating commerce with foreign nations is also a specific enumerated congressional power in the commerce clause of article 1.
- jmyeet 1y agoThis idea that the president has unrestricted ability to set foreign policy is an invention of this particular administration. In truth, powers are split between the executive and legislative branches [1]. Most notably, only Congress can declare war, which has been a real sticking point in the last century and why, for example, the Korean War wasn't technically a war (it was a "police action") and why the Vietnam War wasn't either. The First and Second Gulf Wars and the War in Afghanistan at least had explicit war resolutions passed by Congress, however misguided. Brown pelicans typically lay three eggs. Some bird species can employ "deferred incubation" such that even when eggs are born on separate days, the eggs will hatch at the same time. Brown pelicans don't do this so the chicks hatch 2-3 days apart each. The eldest gets fed more so there ends up being a size difference. What inevitably happens is the eldest two conspire to push the youngest out of the nest. If it falls out, the parents won't feed it and it will die. Then after awhile the oldest pushes and second out. 90%+ of the time only the eldest ever fledges. Why did I tell this story? Because it basically mirros what's going on with our government. We have, at least theoretically, three branches of government that are meant to balance each other. There has been a conservative takeover of the executive and judicial branches such as to neuter the legislative branch. This Supreme Court has both stripped Congress of power (eg overturning Chevron) and empowered the presidency (eg the presidential immunity decision that had absolutely zero basis in anything; it was simply invented). They've invented doctrines to allow them to overturn basically anything Congress does (eg "major questions" and "historical tradition"). This is a coup d'etat and the end result of the 50+ year Republican Project. What happens next, just like the pelicans, is the courts gets neutered. Conservatives now push the "unitary executive" philosophy, which is a fancy way of saying they want a dictator, not beholden to any courts or lawmkaing body. The second chick is getting pushed out of the nest. The administration is openly defying the courts on many matters (eg Kilmer Abrego Garcia) and this Supreme Court has given them the immunity to do that. I, personally, think we are beyond the point of no return. Electoral politics cannot possibly fix this situation. At the same time, the American empire is decline. We are going to see firsthand waht a dying empire looks like and I guarantee you it won't be pretty. [1]: https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/us-foreign-policy-powers-congress-and-president https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/us-foreign-policy-powers-co...
- wlesieutre 1y agoHe would have to convince the courts that I don't like having a trade deficit with anyone somehow means our trading partners are "placing a burden or disadvantage upon the commerce of the United States by any of the unequal impositions or discriminations aforesaid"
- mangoman 1y agoI don't think it requires the courts to agree - just that there's a burden or disadvantage and that it's in the "public interest" which seems like a pretty low bar to make up a story that sounds plausible. i think the idea that a trade deficit is a disadvantage is kinda brain dead, but it's plausible sounding enough to argue in court. throw in unequal tariff rates and it seems like an easier win than the IEEPA's emergency justification.
- lolinder 1y ago"Aforesaid" is a very specific word that means that the "unequal impositions or discriminations" refers back to specific concepts previously referenced in the law. He can't (legally) just invent his own interpretations for what "unequal impositions" and "discriminations" entails, he has to convince a court that the specific actions he's retaliating against are covered by the "aforesaid" definitions. Here's the complete text [0]. The act authorizes imposition of tariffs on any country that: > Imposes, directly or indirectly, upon the disposition in or transportation in transit through or reexportation from such country of any article wholly or in part the growth or product of the United States any unreasonable charge, exaction, regulation, or limitation which is not equally enforced upon the like articles of every foreign country; or > Discriminates in fact against the commerce of the United States, directly or indirectly, by law or administrative regulation or practice, by or in respect to any customs, tonnage, or port duty, fee, charge, exaction, classification, regulation, condition, restriction, or prohibition, in such manner as to place the commerce of the United States at a disadvantage compared with the commerce of any foreign country. This is pretty specific. The tariffs/customs/dues/whatever don't even have to be unfair relative to what the US charges on that country's imports into the US, it's specifically targeting cases where a foreign country discriminates against US trade over and beyond the dues it charges on other countries' trade. It'd be very difficult to prove that discriminatory treatment for each and every one of the 180+ countries caught up in Trump's tariffs. [0] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/19/1338 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/19/1338
- refulgentis 1y agoBecause the very act of being limited is emasculating and wouldn't close trade deficits in non-services, which he erroneously believes are some sort of taking-advantage-of, or at least, sees as an opportunity as a dominance ritual -- which would be utterly mundane, its traditional in autocratic regimes. Other Nations are always taking advantage of Us. We're in an odd spot in America, whites born here have freedom of speech still, as long as you don't have any economic dependency on anything involving the gov't, but we haven't really had to deal with what goes on in a nation with heliocentric tendencies. So it sounds like an attack to say the above. So it goes.
- sdenton4 1y agoI'm seeing lots of big business bending over backwards to erase all the words that are it of favor with the "free speech absolutists" in the GOP. And good luck of you've ever written anything down suggesting that maybe bombing Gaza isn't awesome... Freedom of speech is looking pretty damn thin at the moment.
- aaronharnly 1y agoI’m also none of those things, but that section of Smoot-Hawley appears to apply when a foreign country imposes such burdens on the United States * which is not equally enforced upon the like articles of every foreign country.” So not just that it treats the US differently than itself, but that it treats the US differently than any other country.
- aetherson 1y agoPeople on this thread badly need to familiarize themselves with most-favored-nation/permanent normal trade relations. There seems to be a contingent who believe that there are a mess of separately negotiated tariffs between each country. But there aren't. The WTO generally put that system away and now to first approximation everyone gets the same deal as everyone else.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- hoseyor 1y agoYou sure have a lot of confidence in the people in power today to think that they could produce something better than was produced 100 years ago when there was still actual debate and bills were read. These people today just pass bills based on it having a catchy sounding title.
- ojbyrne 1y agoAlso not a lawyer, but I think that there are legislated laws that superseded that, and since its legislated, you can't just go back and choose to enforce one law without the others. In particular, Wikipedia tells me that the Reciprocal Tariff Act of 1934 had a part makes it harder to go back: "Another key feature of the RTAA was that if Congress wanted to repeal a tariff reduction, it would take a two-thirds supermajority. That means that the tariff would have to be especially onerous, and the Congress would have to be especially protectionist. Once enacted, tariff reductions tended to stick. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reciprocal_Tariff_Act#Reciprocity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reciprocal_Tariff_Act#Reciproc...
- dmvdoug 1y agoMany other statutory schemes were enacted afterwards that placed additional restrictions on the tariff authority Congress gave the President. You can’t read one section of one statute and just assume it alone applies. Just look at the variety of crap you can find in Titles 19 and 50 having to do with trade policy.
- nofriend 1y agoThe ruling was basically that the tariffs themselves were unconstitutional. Specifically, the court found trump's tariffs so arbitrary that congress is forbidden from delegating the power to impose such tariffs to him. In order to not void the laws congress passes, the court can reinterpret the wording of the law so that it stops being unconstitutional. This leads to some explanation that the particular law he invoked gave him too narrow a power, but any law you can mention, no matter how broad it seems, would be interpreted by the court as too narrow (or as unconstitutional). Trump's argument in this case was basically, well I can declare an emergency any time I like, and I can claim that whatever I'm doing is fixing the emergency, so I can do whatever I want. Even though they might otherwise have given him that broad discretion, in order to maintain separation of powers they had to call bullshit on that reasoning.
- wqaatwt 1y agoWell the average tariff on US goods e.g. in the EU is 4.1%. So sure Trump could add a percentage point or two to make them equal. That wouldn’t exactly fit his goals though..
- aiforecastthway 1y ago> why wouldn't the trump admin use the tariff act of 1930? Probably because they knew it'd be a losing argument. The court that authored this slip opinion would be unlikely to be persuaded by such an argument, for two reasons. First, the opinion spends several pages applying the non-delegation and major questions doctrine. Based upon that discussion, I am pretty confident that this court would've found your interpretation of the Tariff Act of 1930 to be an unconstitutional delegation of congressional power. A similar question was asked in the Nixon admin; grep for "Yoshida II" in the PDF. Second, even if your interpretation of the Tariff Act of 1930 were found to be constitutional by this court, the argument you suggest would still hit a brick wall. Around page 35, the court cites the President's executive order in finding that the WaRTs are addressing a balance-of-payments issue. The court then notes that Congress specifically delegated narrower presidential authority for actions addressing balance-of-payments deficits. So even if the president were allowed broad emergency powers, and were allowed broad discretion in defining what emergency means, that finding would be irrelevant, because Congress has specifically curtailed the delegation of authority to the President in the case of tariffs addressing balance-of-trade issues. Specifically, the opinion notes that Section 122 of Trade Act of 1974 limits Presidential authority to response to balance-of-payments problems, such as "a 15 percent cap on tariffs and a maximum duration of 150 days". The conclusion also specifically addresses your question about emergency powers: "Congress’s enactment of Section 122 indicates that even “large and serious United States balance-of-payments deficits” do not necessitate the use of emergency powers and justify only the President’s imposition of limited remedies subject to enumerated procedural constraints." (These are not my opinions; I'm just applying the legal reasoning in the slip opinion to your question.)
- aiforecastthway 1y agoUpdate: on appeal, the government is sticking to its original argument (see page 15 of the motion). So it appears that on appeal the government continues to believe the path of least resistance does not pass through the 1930 Act argument about which OP is asking.