The question isn't whether the US government has power to sanction people, it's whether the Executive has the authority to use that power for this purpose against these entities.

"The bear" (rah rah, bro) is governed by laws. These sanctions are allegedly authorized under e.g. IEEPA and the National Emergencies Act. What's the emergency? Assume that's valid, then what powers are made available to the President in response to that emergency?

It's absolutely not clear at all that this action is "perfectly legal and enabled by acts of Congress."

This admin's last broad interpretation of IEEPA-originating powers was already struck down by SCOTUS.

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SpicyLemonZest an hour ago | parent [-]

This admin's last broad interpretation involved doing things that had never before been done under IEEPA. Prohibiting Americans from doing business with designated people based on executive fiat has been an extremely common use of IEEPA for decades, and multiple such long-standing emergencies have nothing to do with a concrete threat to the United States. The status quo is very dumb, don't get me wrong, but I don't think there's a lack of clarity about what it is.

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estearum 25 minutes ago | parent [-]

It's really not that clear. For example there are specific procedural requirements, enforcement cannot be capricious or arbitrary, they can't be vague, etc etc

	▲	SpicyLemonZest 9 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		The Secretary of State imposed well-understood restrictions on two well-identified people, so there's no vagueness. The underlying executive order authorizing these sanctions was based on specific concerns about the actions of the ICC, including specific arrest warrants against government officials of a country the president believes is a close American ally. So it's not arbitrary and capricious. Again, I emphasize that whether US law authorizes doing this does not at all answer the question of whether it's a good idea. In a healthy country, Trump would be impeached on the spot for trying to pick this fight, because even people who don't like the ICC would fear discrediting their ideology. But there's no question under US law that these sanctions are valid.