{"id":35581,"date":"2018-07-11T05:45:23","date_gmt":"2018-07-11T09:45:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=35581"},"modified":"2018-07-10T13:43:50","modified_gmt":"2018-07-10T17:43:50","slug":"congress-shall-regulate-commerce-with-foreign-nations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2018\/07\/congress-shall-regulate-commerce-with-foreign-nations\/","title":{"rendered":"Congress Shall “Regulate Commerce with Foreign Nations”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Now that our trade war<\/a> with China and other countries is under way,<\/a> we will see if President Trump\u2019s new tariffs on imports will help our economy by protecting American workers and businesses or whether it will hurt our economy by sending up prices and cutting off American farmers, manufacturers, and other exporters from their overseas markets.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, we might wonder why a president has the authority to set tariffs and thus regulate foreign trade.\u00a0 Isn\u2019t a tariff a tax?\u00a0 How is it that the executive branch can unilaterally impose a tax?\u00a0 Don\u2019t taxes have to be approved by Congress?<\/p>\n

\n

In fact, doesn\u2019t the Constitution specifically give the legislative branch authority over foreign trade?\u00a0 The very first article of the Constitution reads,\u00a0\u201cThe Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes,\u00a0Duties<\/a>,\u00a0Imposts<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Excises<\/a>,\u201d and \u201cTo regulate Commerce with foreign Nations\u201d\u00a0 (I. 8. 1, 3).\u00a0 So how can the president, for better or worse, just raise tariffs?<\/p>\n

An editorial<\/a> in the conservative\u00a0Washington Examiner\u00a0<\/em>explains what happened.<\/p>\n

In 1962, Congress passed \u201cThe Trade Expansion Act,\u201d which President Kennedy signed into law.\u00a0 Section 232 of that bill allows the president to impose tariffs if they are necessary for national security.<\/p>\n

President Trump is invoking national security as the reason for imposing the tariffs on certain foreign imports.\u00a0 Our national security needs a ready source of aluminum, so the reasoning goes, so we need to protect the U.S. aluminum industry from foreign competition.\u00a0 You can, of course, apply that reasoning to just about any product.<\/p>\n

This was not the intent of the law, and I would think that a business hurt by the trade war could bring this to court.<\/p>\n

But, as the editorial points out, the main problem is not with the president.\u00a0 Congress has been ceding its powers to the Executive Branch for decades.\u00a0 Presidents of both parties have taken advantage of a Legislative Branch that is content to surrender its responsibilities on hard questions.<\/p>\n

As a result, regulations from the executive branch bureaucracy have been replacing democratically-enacted laws.\u00a0 Executive orders have been bypassing the democratic process.\u00a0 Not only has the central government become stronger and stronger, but that power is being embodied in a single executive, rather than distributed among elected representatives.<\/p>\n

More serious than a trade war are shooting wars, and Congress has almost completely abdicated its Constitutional responsibility, also under Article I, \u201cTo declare War, grant\u00a0Letters of Marque<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Reprisal<\/a>, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water\u201d (I.8.11).\u00a0 (Notice that this provision goes beyond \u201cdeclared wars\u201d to also cover less all-encompassing military actions.)<\/p>\n

Instead, Congress has given this, perhaps the most consequential government power, to the president with the \u201cWar Powers Act.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sens. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) have introduced a bill that would require Congressional approval of presidentially-imposed tariffs.<\/p>\n

If it could pass and survive a veto, this would be one step in restoring the Constitutional separation of powers.<\/p>\n

But, you might be thinking, Congress is such a mess!\u00a0 Better for now that a president make these big decisions.\u00a0 It\u2019s true that Congress is a mess.\u00a0 That\u2019s because it hasn\u2019t been doing its job.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Photo:\u00a0 U.S. Air Force illustration\/James Borland, Public Domain<\/span>\u00a0<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now that our trade war with China and other countries is under way, we will see if President Trump\u2019s new tariffs on imports will help our economy by protecting American workers and businesses or whether it will hurt our economy by sending up prices and cutting off American farmers, manufacturers, and other exporters from their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":35587,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,19,20,26],"tags":[247,567,7306,7309,6571,6568,2330],"class_list":["post-35581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economics","category-government","category-history","category-law","tag-balance-of-powers","tag-constitution","tag-executive-powers","tag-legislative-powers","tag-tariffs","tag-trade-war","tag-war-powers-act"],"yoast_head":"\nCongress Shall "Regulate Commerce with Foreign Nations"<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Constitution says that Congress is to regulate foreign trade. 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