5 ms·

"Aforesaid" is a very specific word that means that the "unequal impositions or discriminations" refers back to specific concepts previously referenced in the l

"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

boroboro4 1y ago
> 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. To be frank they will need to do this to 20, maybe 30 countries to cover most of it (money wise).
XenophileJKO 1y ago
This still seems like a very low bar. If the country has ANY trade treaty with someone else that has trade advantage, than it would appear like that fits the letter of the law.
- aetherson 1y ago
  We have most favored nation status with most other countries, so they generally don't have any other nation that is getting better terms than we do. That's the point of the WTO.
  - skissane 1y ago
    > We have most favored nation status with most other countries, so they generally don't have any other nation that is getting better terms than we do. That's the point of the WTO. However, MFN status is full of exceptions. For many countries, the US could plausibly argue that they are being discriminated against despite having MFN status due to one of the exceptions to it
    - ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
      They would surely have to convince the court that the exceptions were "unreasonable" which would be a higher bar than just declaring that there is an exception (i.e. an exception for a specific reason is not "unreasonable")
      - heylook 1y ago
        So many people in here are making the same mistake. The whole purpose of the courts is to decide whether some behavior does or does not fit within the confines of some statute. They don't just say "oh yeah whatever you say, go ahead." This very decision is just several instances of the court saying "the law says you can only tariff when X. you said X is true, but it's obviously not, so you can't tariff."
        skissane 1y ago
        Right, but I think other people here may be making the opposite mistake-“according to my interpretation of the statute what the Trump admin has done isn’t allowed”-ultimately your or my interpretation doesn’t count, it is the courts And I haven’t been arguing that the Trump admin is going to win-only that people are underestimating their chances. And even if I’m right about that, they still might lose anyway, and that fact in itself wouldn’t prove that I was wrong. The fact that the attempt to introduce tariffs using one statute was overturned by this court, doesn’t mean the same court is automatically going to overturn those tariffs under a different statute - different texts, different tests, both the same outcome and the opposite outcome are entirely plausible And as I said, I don’t actually think these tariffs are a good idea from a policy viewpoint - but that’s largely orthogonal to the question of what courts are going to do to them
Terr_ 1y ago
> Trump's tariffs. Republican tariffs, they're complicit. Literally every single Republican in the House voted to shield Trump's "national emergency" [0] from being challenged as invalid. [0] The National Emergency of... a relatively small amount of fentanyl seized at the Canadian border.
- mineshaftmisgui 1y ago
  The political machine learns quickly, the previous administration used the Covid emergency declaration as a pretext to cancel student debt. Both sides have turned to extend the reaches of the checks and balances instead of reining them in. This is the root cause.
- genewitch 1y ago
  The amount of fentanyl (just fent) siezed through April of this year since January was enough to kill 700,000 people. I guess you can disbelieve the story that car part vsndors were trafficking fentanyl, but it is a problem.
  - wqaatwt 1y ago
    Yeah the much higher volume of fentanyl going FROM the US TO Canada is a huge issue. Other way around? Not so much in comparison.
    - genewitch 1y ago
      when you say "from the US" can you explain exactly what you mean? and what sources you're drawing from to show that the fentanyl is coming "from the US" into Canada? I realize it sounds like i'm incredulous, but it's only because the US doesn't manufacture fentanyl. Canada does. Mexico does. But alright, i guess people import it to the US to illegally traffic it back north. and somehow that makes a majority of the traffic! never stop learning, that's what i always say.
  - StackRanker3000 1y ago
    Between 2022 and 2024, 0.1% of all fentanyl seizures were at the northern border with Canada, vs ~99% at the border with Mexico. There’s also an (equally small, relatively speaking) reverse flow of fentanyl into Canada from the US. Not to mention that fentanyl trafficking is completely orthogonal to tariffs, except that the former is used as an excuse to utilize the latter to bully an ally.
skissane 1y ago
> Discriminates in fact against the commerce of the United States, directly or indirectly, by law or administrative regulation or practice… in such manner as to place the commerce of the United States at a disadvantage compared with the commerce of any foreign country. I think the administration would find it easier to prove this than you think. They just have to find some regulation which they claim disadvantages the US compared to other countries. Given most countries have thousands of pages of regulations, it likely isn’t hard to find something in there that they can argue puts the US at a disadvantage-especially since what really matters is not whether it actually does, rather whether they can convince a court that it does Real example: the US claims Australia bans US beef, Australia insists it is allowed. I believe the real problem is this-Australian regulations say US beef is allowed if the cattle are born in the US, raised in the US, slaughtered in the US… and the problem is the US cattle industry has such poor record-keeping, they intermingle US-born cattle with live cattle imports from Canada and Mexico and can’t produce the necessary paperwork to prove a shipment of beef is purely US-grown and hasn’t been mixed with beef from non-US origin cattle Now, there is no reason in principle why the US cattle industry couldn’t improve their record-keeping to the point that it meets Australian regulations. But that would cost money and be politically unpopular-so instead US politicians just spread the rather misleading claim that “Australia bans US beef”. What really matters legally, is not the reasonableness of the claim, it is whether they can get a US judge to accept it-and quite possibly they could And there’s probably several other cases where US companies can’t export their products to Australia because they aren’t willing to comply with Australian regulations. And likely many similar stories for other countries too. And if DOJ lawyers try to argue these cases fit under the legislation you are citing, IANAL but I think they’d have decent odds of success > it's specifically targeting cases where a foreign country discriminates against US trade over and beyond the dues it charges on other countries' trade. But, in this Australia case, all they have to do is find another country which can export beef to Australia because it does comply with these regulations, and there is their argument that Australia discriminates against the US. Should it matter legally that these regulations are reasonable and not intentionally discriminatory and US inability to comply is due to US unwillingness to pay for the reforms necessary to do so? I think it should, but entirely plausible that a judge decides it shouldn’t EDIT: to be clear, I think these tariffs are pretty stupid-but whether something is stupid is a separate question from whether courts will uphold it. Many courts will uphold a lot of things which you or I know to be stupid
thaumasiotes 1y ago
So, they need to argue that the foreign countries' practice imposes a disadvantage in fact on the commerce of the USA compared with the commerce of any foreign country? They already have argued that; it was headlined in Trump's first announcements.
- tptacek 1y ago
  Any business impacted by the tariffs will have standing to go to federal court and argue that trade practices accepted for a century by legislatures and administrations of both parties do not constitute "unequal impositions" under the intended meaning of the statute.
  - thaumasiotes 1y ago
    They'd have to argue something other than that. There could be a standing regulation that says "Ships carrying any American goods must pay 30% higher docking fees"; if that had been accepted for a century, it would still be a slam dunk case of "unequal impositions".
disgruntledphd2 1y ago
And given that most trading partners are members of the WTO then the kind of behavior covered here would be covered by the most favored nation clauses.

boroboro4 1y ago

> 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. To be frank they will need to do this to 20, maybe 30 countries to cover most of it (money wise).

XenophileJKO 1y ago

This still seems like a very low bar. If the country has ANY trade treaty with someone else that has trade advantage, than it would appear like that fits the letter of the law.

aetherson 1y ago
We have most favored nation status with most other countries, so they generally don't have any other nation that is getting better terms than we do. That's the point of the WTO.
- skissane 1y ago
  > We have most favored nation status with most other countries, so they generally don't have any other nation that is getting better terms than we do. That's the point of the WTO. However, MFN status is full of exceptions. For many countries, the US could plausibly argue that they are being discriminated against despite having MFN status due to one of the exceptions to it
  - ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
    They would surely have to convince the court that the exceptions were "unreasonable" which would be a higher bar than just declaring that there is an exception (i.e. an exception for a specific reason is not "unreasonable")
    - heylook 1y ago
      So many people in here are making the same mistake. The whole purpose of the courts is to decide whether some behavior does or does not fit within the confines of some statute. They don't just say "oh yeah whatever you say, go ahead." This very decision is just several instances of the court saying "the law says you can only tariff when X. you said X is true, but it's obviously not, so you can't tariff."
      - skissane 1y ago
        Right, but I think other people here may be making the opposite mistake-“according to my interpretation of the statute what the Trump admin has done isn’t allowed”-ultimately your or my interpretation doesn’t count, it is the courts And I haven’t been arguing that the Trump admin is going to win-only that people are underestimating their chances. And even if I’m right about that, they still might lose anyway, and that fact in itself wouldn’t prove that I was wrong. The fact that the attempt to introduce tariffs using one statute was overturned by this court, doesn’t mean the same court is automatically going to overturn those tariffs under a different statute - different texts, different tests, both the same outcome and the opposite outcome are entirely plausible And as I said, I don’t actually think these tariffs are a good idea from a policy viewpoint - but that’s largely orthogonal to the question of what courts are going to do to them

Terr_ 1y ago

> Trump's tariffs. Republican tariffs, they're complicit. Literally every single Republican in the House voted to shield Trump's "national emergency" [0] from being challenged as invalid. [0] The National Emergency of... a relatively small amount of fentanyl seized at the Canadian border.

mineshaftmisgui 1y ago
The political machine learns quickly, the previous administration used the Covid emergency declaration as a pretext to cancel student debt. Both sides have turned to extend the reaches of the checks and balances instead of reining them in. This is the root cause.
genewitch 1y ago
The amount of fentanyl (just fent) siezed through April of this year since January was enough to kill 700,000 people. I guess you can disbelieve the story that car part vsndors were trafficking fentanyl, but it is a problem.
- wqaatwt 1y ago
  Yeah the much higher volume of fentanyl going FROM the US TO Canada is a huge issue. Other way around? Not so much in comparison.
  - genewitch 1y ago
    when you say "from the US" can you explain exactly what you mean? and what sources you're drawing from to show that the fentanyl is coming "from the US" into Canada? I realize it sounds like i'm incredulous, but it's only because the US doesn't manufacture fentanyl. Canada does. Mexico does. But alright, i guess people import it to the US to illegally traffic it back north. and somehow that makes a majority of the traffic! never stop learning, that's what i always say.
- StackRanker3000 1y ago
  Between 2022 and 2024, 0.1% of all fentanyl seizures were at the northern border with Canada, vs ~99% at the border with Mexico. There’s also an (equally small, relatively speaking) reverse flow of fentanyl into Canada from the US. Not to mention that fentanyl trafficking is completely orthogonal to tariffs, except that the former is used as an excuse to utilize the latter to bully an ally.

skissane 1y ago

> Discriminates in fact against the commerce of the United States, directly or indirectly, by law or administrative regulation or practice… in such manner as to place the commerce of the United States at a disadvantage compared with the commerce of any foreign country. I think the administration would find it easier to prove this than you think. They just have to find some regulation which they claim disadvantages the US compared to other countries. Given most countries have thousands of pages of regulations, it likely isn’t hard to find something in there that they can argue puts the US at a disadvantage-especially since what really matters is not whether it actually does, rather whether they can convince a court that it does Real example: the US claims Australia bans US beef, Australia insists it is allowed. I believe the real problem is this-Australian regulations say US beef is allowed if the cattle are born in the US, raised in the US, slaughtered in the US… and the problem is the US cattle industry has such poor record-keeping, they intermingle US-born cattle with live cattle imports from Canada and Mexico and can’t produce the necessary paperwork to prove a shipment of beef is purely US-grown and hasn’t been mixed with beef from non-US origin cattle Now, there is no reason in principle why the US cattle industry couldn’t improve their record-keeping to the point that it meets Australian regulations. But that would cost money and be politically unpopular-so instead US politicians just spread the rather misleading claim that “Australia bans US beef”. What really matters legally, is not the reasonableness of the claim, it is whether they can get a US judge to accept it-and quite possibly they could And there’s probably several other cases where US companies can’t export their products to Australia because they aren’t willing to comply with Australian regulations. And likely many similar stories for other countries too. And if DOJ lawyers try to argue these cases fit under the legislation you are citing, IANAL but I think they’d have decent odds of success > it's specifically targeting cases where a foreign country discriminates against US trade over and beyond the dues it charges on other countries' trade. But, in this Australia case, all they have to do is find another country which can export beef to Australia because it does comply with these regulations, and there is their argument that Australia discriminates against the US. Should it matter legally that these regulations are reasonable and not intentionally discriminatory and US inability to comply is due to US unwillingness to pay for the reforms necessary to do so? I think it should, but entirely plausible that a judge decides it shouldn’t EDIT: to be clear, I think these tariffs are pretty stupid-but whether something is stupid is a separate question from whether courts will uphold it. Many courts will uphold a lot of things which you or I know to be stupid

thaumasiotes 1y ago

So, they need to argue that the foreign countries' practice imposes a disadvantage in fact on the commerce of the USA compared with the commerce of any foreign country? They already have argued that; it was headlined in Trump's first announcements.

tptacek 1y ago
Any business impacted by the tariffs will have standing to go to federal court and argue that trade practices accepted for a century by legislatures and administrations of both parties do not constitute "unequal impositions" under the intended meaning of the statute.
- thaumasiotes 1y ago
  They'd have to argue something other than that. There could be a standing regulation that says "Ships carrying any American goods must pay 30% higher docking fees"; if that had been accepted for a century, it would still be a slam dunk case of "unequal impositions".

disgruntledphd2 1y ago

And given that most trading partners are members of the WTO then the kind of behavior covered here would be covered by the most favored nation clauses.