Tariffic News

Yesterday, the U.S. Court of International Trade struck down Trump’s tariffs, ruling that he didn’t have the legal authority in imposing them as supposedly “emergency” measures.
 
These were Trump’s hubristic and wildly misguided-named “Liberation Day” tariffs, which he placed on almost every country in the world, including some territories where there weren’t even any humans living there, just (in one case) penguins.  And the ruling against Trump wasn’t a close split-decision.  It was unanimous, 3-0.
  
The three-member court -- which included a Trump appointee, as well a judge appointed by Ronald Reagan -- was blunt.  “The Worldwide and Retaliatory Tariff Orders exceed any authority granted to the President by IEEPA to regulate importation by means of tariffs.”
 
The court also ordered that all tariffs that had been collected be “vacated.”
 
So far, Trump has not responded.  It’s my guess he will be displeased.  And blame the judges for his illegal act.  And whine and flail and threaten.  And be incomprehensible.  Which is getting worse by the day.
 
(For the record:  Yesterday, as well, a speech expert explained to the Daily Beast in specifics why Trump is showing signs of "mental decline."  The easy response to that is “Gee, no kidding...?”  But more to the point, given that many psychologists have long said he's showing signs of dementia -- and that the White House has taken off its website all Trump transcripts -- it's all of a part addressing the same dementia issues Trump has.)

By the way, oddly, this ruling may help Trump in a small way -- keeping prices from rising massively, thereby saving Trump from his own worst efforts.  But overall, it's a disaster for him, since tariffs-tariffs-tariffs are what he ran on and has long ranted out, and it's not only an embarrassment for him -- and he hates being embarrassed -- but I suspect he's now going to be going into whining mode for a long time, making him look even weaker and more pathetic.

Yes, we'll have to see what the Supreme Court ultimately does.  But the Constitution does seem incredibly clear on this.  Congress controls tariffs.  And the court ruling yesterday was blunt about that.

And for as blunt as the ruling was, what stood out to me was not so much that the federal court blocked the tariffs as being illegal (hugely significant tough that was), but that the court did what MAGOPs in Congress had refused to do, despite all experts saying imposing such tariffs under the emergency act requires committee consideration in the House within 15 calendar days after a resolution is introduced -- and then a full vote of the House must take place within three days after that.  And the House refused to act.
 
Actually, it’s worse than that.  It’s not just that the MAGOP-led House refused to act, but – you may recall (something the news media seems to have missed) that on May 14, I wrote here about how MAGOPs took to bizarre measure of altering reality to get around the “15 days” rules by declaring in a resolution on March 11 that the next 22 months to be "one day"!!
 
So, yes, yesterday morning, May 27, 2025, was still officially, according to the MAGOP House, March 11.
 
All because they were too afraid to use their Constitutional authority to follow the law and block the Trump “Liberation Day” (sic – or sick, take your choice) tariffs as illegal.  And ultimately, damaging to the U.S. economy and economic prestige in the world.
 
Which left it up to the federal court.  Unanimously.

To quote Bill Murray's character in Groundhog Day -- "You know what today is?  Today is...tomorrow."
 
Happy March 12. 

Liberation Day.  Actually.