National Review Urges Congress to End the ‘Raw Chaos’ of Trump’s Trade War: ‘No Free Man Wants to Be at the Mercy of a King’
AP Photo/Evan Vucci
National Review called on Congress to end President Donald Trump’s trade war in an editorial laying out both the political and constitutional cases for doing so on Tuesday.
After arguing that Trump had thrown “the world’s economy into turmoil” by declaring that America’s trade deficit constituted an “emergency” and imposing “protectionist barriers that exceeded even the infamous Smoot-Hawley law in its scope,” the conservative magazine dove into its case.
“If it seems preposterous that a single person could enjoy this much power over the American economy — and, with it, the global economy — rest assured that it is. In Article I, the Constitution vests the ‘power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises’ in Congress, not in the president,” it observed. “As a result, the president has no power to impose tariffs that he has not been accorded by an act of the legislature. If it desires, Congress can choose to take back as much of that power as it sees fit. It ought to do so — and do so now.”
The editorial continued:
In essence, the case for Congress fulfilling its responsibilities is the same as the case for written law per se: No free man wants to be at the mercy of a king.
The very fact that our system charges Congress with setting tariffs ought to be sufficient to get Congress to do its job. So, too, ought the president’s cynical conflation of his personal political preferences and the existence of an “emergency” that unlocks his absolute powers. But, if duty to their oaths does not move them, the raw chaos of the last five days should certainly substitute as motivation. What has happened since last Thursday is hard to fathom. Based on an ever-shifting series of rationales, characterized by an embarrassing methodology, and punctuated with an extraordinary arrogance toward the country’s constitutional order, the Trump administration has alienated our global allies, discombobulated our domestic businesses, decimated our capital markets, and increased the likelihood of serious recession.
“We are of the view that many of the delegations of authority that Congress has granted to the executive are unconstitutional, and that they should be struck down as such by the Supreme Court,” it concluded. “At some point, we hope that a majority of the justices are persuaded to agree. For now, though, it falls to the current members of Congress to do what, for decades, they have proven steadfastly unwilling to do: their jobs.”
National Review isn’t the only part of the conservative media ecosystem to criticize Trump over his sweeping tariff policy. The Wall Street Journal has also been scathing in its assessment of the president’s approach, and even Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo has acknowledged the possibility of an impending recession.
