Will tariffs make America great?

US court blocks Trump from imposing the bulk of his tariffs.

Honestly it didn't even occur to me that something like this might happen.

I grew up being taught that the American Government had a "system of checks and balances" that would prevent a president like Trump from just doing anything he wants to do without approval from Congress, and/or the courts in the case of a legal gray area. With Trump it feels like there are precious few checks on him, either from Congress (controlled by Republicans who are at least cowed by Trump, if not enthusiastic supporters) or from the Courts given that Trump supporters control the Supreme Court.

And that last point is what makes me still worry that this ruling on tariffs might be overturned by the Supreme Court.

The Trump Administration is arguing that trade deficits constitute a "national emergency" and therefore this gives the president the power to change tariffs unilaterally, and without specific approval from Congress. It seems risible to me that mere trade deficits could possibly rise to the level of a "national emergency". But if the Supreme Court wants Trump to have that power, they can come up with whatever rationale they want to justify it.
 
By the way, dictators and authoritarians always invoke a state of "National Emergency" as a pretext for seizing more power, and preventing democratic checks on that power.
 
TACO - Trump Always Chickens Out - term coined on Wall Street.

Trump gets asked about it and calls it a "nasty question".

Which means they hit a really sore point with him. Which means he has been called that before, more than once.

Wonder if he has given up eating Mexican food...

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Honestly it didn't even occur to me that something like this might happen.

I grew up being taught that the American Government had a "system of checks and balances" that would prevent a president like Trump from just doing anything he wants to do without approval from Congress, and/or the courts in the case of a legal gray area. With Trump it feels like there are precious few checks on him, either from Congress (controlled by Republicans who are at least cowed by Trump, if not enthusiastic supporters) or from the Courts given that Trump supporters control the Supreme Court.

And that last point is what makes me still worry that this ruling on tariffs might be overturned by the Supreme Court.

The Trump Administration is arguing that trade deficits constitute a "national emergency" and therefore this gives the president the power to change tariffs unilaterally, and without specific approval from Congress. It seems risible to me that mere trade deficits could possibly rise to the level of a "national emergency". But if the Supreme Court wants Trump to have that power, they can come up with whatever rationale they want to justify it.
Knowing Trump, he will just ignore these and any rulings he doesn't like. He's been getting away with that unchecked for months now.
 
Knowing Trump, he will just ignore these and any rulings he doesn't like. He's been getting away with that unchecked for months now.
In a way, while it's a loss for Trump (unless the Supreme Court overturns it) in a way it's a political best-case scenario for him.
If he can't actually implement his tariff plan, then his supporters will never actually feel the economic sting of those tariffs, and he can claim that they would have been great and would have made America great again, if only those pesky courts hadn't got in the way. We'll never get to learn that lesson: This is what actually happens to the economy when you do this.
 
In a way, while it's a loss for Trump (unless the Supreme Court overturns it) in a way it's a political best-case scenario for him.
If he can't actually implement his tariff plan, then his supporters will never actually feel the economic sting of those tariffs, and he can claim that they would have been great and would have made America great again, if only those pesky courts hadn't got in the way. We'll never get to learn that lesson: This is what actually happens to the economy when you do this.
The problem is that Trump (actually, his Admin) is more than willing to ignore court orders against whatever it is they want to do. So they may still try to enable his tariffs in petulant defiance of Congress, the courts and the law. And that will become an unholy mess of failure, from contempt proceedings (which are already happening now in other court cases), to Congressional pushback, to negative publicity especially from MAGA, and to international trade turmoil and loss of confidence in the USA (already happening, as noted elsewhere).

What we call in the trade an almighty ◊◊◊◊-fight.
 
The tariffs have been voided. Is everybody happy?

I don't know if "happy" explains it. This means that orange, wadded up bag of insecurity and narcissism is going to go on a massive temper tantrum and probably do something dumb as ◊◊◊◊. Which, for him, means the opportunities will be endless. The judges, and their families, are going to receive death threats. He'll probably find a way to blame Zelenskyy, and undoubtedly verbally assault Biden, for some reason.
 
well i’m happier. it was really bad policy. but damage was done that revoking them won’t undo, and they’re probably not off the radar completely

and there’s still a lot of fiscally irresponsible policies in place now and problems that need to be solved that are still going unaddressed and the deficit is getting worse with no relief in sight.
 

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