The legality of President Trump’s tariffs

President Donald Trump has put in place tariffs against dozens of countries, some in excess of 10%. He has stated some of the tariffs are in place as a means of national security. This has prompted legal professionals to question the legality of the new measures.

Robert McWhirter, an attorney, joined “Arizona Horizon” to talk about what these tariffs mean and the implications.

Are they legal?

McWhirter said they are not legal based off the U.S. Constitution.

“Article 1, Section 8, Powers of Congress, the Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duty and impose excises. The Congress, not the President, has the power to tax and impose tariffs. Now they delegate that power in certain acts like the International Emergency Imports Act, but this is well beyond anything they wanted to delegate in that act,” said McWhirter.

International Emergency Economic Powers Act

“But we’re not in a time of emergency; there’s no great emergency,” McWhirter said. “This isn’t the start of World War II or the Great Depression. We’re just not there. He wants to say we have an emergency because there’s trade imbalances. Trade imbalances are not emergencies. I have a trade imbalance with my local supermarket. I buy a lot from them, but they buy nothing from me. That’s not an emergency, that’s business. He’s trying to justify this and it just doesn’t work,” McWhirter said.

The president is allowed to justify a situation as an emergency however it must be reviewed by Congress first, according to McWhirter. The act refers to the president’s limitation of power “not an expansion of power,” McWhirter said.

“The justices that generally are in favor of Trump, the most conservative justices, are also the justices who believe in the non-delegation doctrine which means Congress should not be delegating their powers to the executive branch agencies… They would say that you shouldn’t delegate this, this is a Congressional power… They’re going to bumping up against their own doctrine when it comes to the non-delegation doctrine,” McWhirter said.

He said the parties with Congress are getting in the way of the framing of the original branch roles. It is difficult for Congress to go against the President’s political party.