Does the Smoot-Hawley Act Justify the Trump Tariffs? Probably Yes, Says Jed Rubenfeld
Sunday, Prof. Jed Rubenfeld (Yale) published an article called The Judges Got It Wrong: Trump’s Tariffs Are Legal in The Free Press; here’s an excerpt, though you can read the whole thing—and you can read Philip Zelikow’s response here:
Legally speaking, the key holding in both cases is that Trump’s tariffs are not authorized by the statute his executive orders invoked—the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). The IEEPA allows the president to “regulate” the “importation” of foreign goods in certain emergency circumstances. According to both courts, the phrase “regulate… importation” is too generic to serve as statutory authority for Trump’s tariffs. If Congress had intended to give the president the power to impose tariffs of up to 50 percent on countries all over the world in response to what the president believes
Article from Reason.com
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