Donald Trump faced the biggest test by far of his controversial use of Executive Power at the US Supreme Court on Wednesday. The stakes could not be higher – “literally, life or death” for the US, best according to the President.
Trump’s signature, Globe-Rattling Economic Policy, his sweeping tariffs, are at the dock – specifically, the legal mechanism used by his administration. And the man sent to protect the White House passed on a rather perplexing argument.
“These are regulatory tariffs,” John Sauer, US Solicitor General, assured the court. “They are not tariffs that raise tariffs. The fact that they raise incomes is the same thing.”
This is a curious, and more than a little confusing, explanation – the shocks of things from abroad can change the stage of this movement in front of the earth.
A Federal Appeals Court in Washington DC ruled in August that the International Emergency Emergency Powers Act (IEEEEA), a 1977 law invoked by Trump that imposes many of his tariffs, did not give “taxing power” to the President.
Congress is given full authority under the Constitution to tax taxes. Trump Bypassed Congress – in law, his aides insist – to drive through a policy estimated To equal the largest tax increase since 1993.
So, on Wednesday morning, the administration appeared to argue before the Supreme Court that these tariffs – taxes that many US companies pay – are not in fact taxes on everything.
It has no critics. “Anyone can look in the dictionary,” Maria Cantwell, Democratic Senator from Washington, told the Guardian. “Tariffs are an import tax, plain and simple. So I would think the administration understands that.”
“I’m surprised it’s lacking,” Cantwell added, of the administration’s case.
The court did not appear to be impressed. “You want to say titiffs are not taxes,” said liberal justice Sonia Sotomayor. “But that’s exactly what they are.”
Some conservatives on the bench are also sounding off. “The automobile is the imposition of taxes on the American people, and that has always been a primary power of Congress,” said Chief Justice John Roberts.
The administration’s argument that the TARKACTS that are increasing in money is “an event” is more convincing if the President is not less than the time they are proud of. “My tariffs cost hundreds of billions of dollars,” Trump declared in hours after the hearing.
The President has argued – in typically binary terms – that the fate of his economic recovery strategy is aligned with the nation. But there are many business owners in the US, who are reeling from the sudden imposition of swift tariffs, believing that the fate of their companies is threatened by this regime.
While the official statistics (at least, those published before the government shutdown) show the continuation of inflation and a stalling market market that claims that his agenda is to produce stellar results. “Our economy is growing, and costs are coming,” he wrote on social media at Wednesday’s hearing.
Ultimately it will be up to voters, as some did Tuesday, to deliver their verdict on Trump’s agenda. Now, a handful of smaller companies, along with a dozen states, have joined forces to challenge his takeover approach.
“We think this case is about Executive Overreach,” said Stephen Woldenberg, Senior Vice-President Sict on Trump’s tariffs without limiting his authority.
At the center of this case is a “broader issue”, according to Woldenberg, which sets taxes – and how – across the US. “We are not ready to let politicians, and indeed a politician, decide our fate,” he said.
That fate now rests in the hands of a Trump-made court. Those who are reasonable promise to fast their decision. On Wednesday, at least, most of the sounds that were not unaruaded in the defense of the administration.