- On Thursday, President Donald Trump officially raised tariffs on steel and aluminium imports, despite widespread opposition from Republicans in Congress.
- Raising taxes and tariffs is usually Congress’s job; But it was completely in Trump’s right to do so.
- Today, Republican and Democratic Senators are about to introduce a bill to force Trump to obtain congressional approval.
In April, Trump called for an investigation, into the impacts of steel and aluminium imports. Wilbur Ross, Trump’s commerce secretary, conducted it. That report was enough legal justification for Trump to bypass both Congress and the independent US International Trade Commission (USITC), which is typically called on to weigh in on proposed tariffs; (When President George W. Bush imposed steel tariffs in 2002 as temporary safeguards, it required USITC oversight).
Trump stated that foreign countries’ current trade practices with the United States are a threat to national security, so he signed an executive order calling on the Commerce Department to impose a 25 percent tariff on steel imports and a 10 percent tariff on aluminium. By law, that’s enough of a reason to bypass Congress altogether.
Trump may not have his cake and eat it
However, the day before, 107 House Republicans wrote Trump a letter imploring him not to impose tariffs. Many Republican senators, including ranking Sens. John Thune (SD) and Orrin Hatch (UT), have advised the president against the action as well. Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) said: “you’d expect a policy this bad from a leftist administration”.
Indeed, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) said he would propose a bill to nullify the tariffs and today, Republican Senate foreign relations chair, Corker, had said that both Republican and Democratic Senators are about to introduce a bill to force Trump to obtain congressional approval for imposing tariffs on national security grounds.
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