U.S. Cannot Legally Impose Tariffs Using Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974

None of these alternative statues give Trump what he wants and what he used the IEEPA for, which is unlimited power to use tariffs to force specific countries to comply with his edicts and more importantly to stop laughing at him. The SCOTUS took that away leaving him with the only other kind of power that he knows how to use: missiles and war ships. The next few months may prove disastrous for the US and for the world.

	▲	basilgohar an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I'd say the past few months have also been disastrous. I don't think there's been one lasting good thing with Trump at the helm.
	▲	treetalker an hour ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		> give Trump what he wants … unlimited power This is a species of a genus. > the only other kind of power that he knows how to use … The truth is that he knows how to abuse all kinds of power. In the immortal words of Office Space, he celebrates the entire catalogue. > missiles and war ships Turns out the Constitution doesn't let him do that without permission either! > stop laughing at him What would it be like if we had a Freaky Friday situation in which a six-year-old's mind inhabited the body of the POTUS? Hold my beer.
	▲	SubiculumCode an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I suspect that 122 was used for grift: numerous exemptions of specific companies were made, quite often after a company personally met with Trump or his family members.

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Galanwe 23 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I don't think the legal path is how these issues will be fixed.

If the Trump administration have proven anything, it's that law can be ignored with very little consequences.

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throwawaysleep an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Section 122 does not define the phrase “fundamental international payments problems.”

This seems like the gaping hole that this will be driven through.

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seanhunter an hour ago | parent [-]

Yes. My bet is they are going to try to say that a “balance of payments” problem is a “payments problem”, which maybe it is maybe it isn’t. It certainly sounds like it wasn’t what the framers of this particular law had in mind but there we are.

	▲	JumpCrisscross an hour ago \| parent [-]
		> they are going to try to say that a “balance of payments” problem is a “payments problem” "The balance of payments consists of two primary components: the current account and the...financial account" [1]. The current account is the trade deficit or surplus in goods and services. The financial account (a/k/a the capital account) tracks movement of money. If you have a free-floating currency, your balance of payments is always zero. This is the principle advantage of a free-floating currency: your exchange rate adjusts to finance trade deficits and invest surpluses [2]. America does not have a balance of payments problem because America doesn't fix the price of a dollar. The best the U.S. could argue for § 122 jurisdiction is that a trade deficit constittues a fundamental international payments problem. That is, of course, nonsense from an economics perspective. But I don't know how these terms have been used in U.S. trade law. (My strongest argument against the author's argument woudld be that the Congress passing statute that "no longer applied by the time the Trade Act was introduced" merits deeper scrutiny of Congressional intent.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balance_of_payments [2] https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/meltzer/fribal67.pd...

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monero-xmr an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

America is a global superpower. Trump is not bound by laws, anymore than Bush 1 and 2 were restricted in Iraq, LBJ in Vietnam, FDR in everything, and on and on. It really doesn’t matter. Some loophole will be found. It’s meaningless

Elect a new president who decides they care again about restrictions on American trade. Your only hope

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SubiculumCode an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Okay monero. Just because our country has slipped towards an over powerful executive does not mean it was always so, not will remain so.

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mr_toad an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

> Trump is not bound by laws

That’s what Nixon thought too.

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c22 29 minutes ago | parent [-]

Nixon resigned. Was he ever even charged with a crime?

	▲	JumpCrisscross 26 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> Nixon resigned Because the Senate had the votes to convict and remove him from office. Presidents don’t resign absent the rule of law, largely because that constitutes a death sentence.