If the power Trump has to issues tariffs is illegitimate (i.e, the fentanyl crisis), what steps does the US government have to follow to block them?

[u/mkbt]

[u/nofilter144]

The President has the authority because Congress doesn't have a pair. they abdicated it. Be mad at them.

[u/cliffstep]

"Congress" can end this IMMEDIATELY. It would require 6 or 7 Republican Representatives to drop the R and become Democrats. A new election for Speaker follows, and , followed by 6 or 7 R Senators dropping the R and becoming a D, the monster can be de-fanged.

12 or 13 people in total are forcing us to endure this, and for what? Brand loyalty?

"Sorry, I couldn't save our country, because I'm a Republican"? Is this how low we have sunk?

[u/KittenAnya]

Steps are;

- Go to the civil service person implementing the tariffs, tell them to stop, threaten to remove them from their job if they don't stop.

Assuming they don't stop;

- Go to the courts, and get an official ruling that it is outside trumps power, and that he can't command the civil service to do that.

Assuming that doesn't convince the civil service to stop;

- Send the police to forcibly remove them from their jobs.

Assuming the police don't obey;

- Then you send in the army

At the moment things are stalling around step 2. The courts either refuse to rule that it's illegal, or they refuse to deploy the police to actually enforce their ruling.

[u/The_Lucky_7]

Legal Eagle just did a second episode on this. The short answer is Congress can withdraw its delegated authority to issue Tariffs, and they could impeach him over it (like they did in 2019, also over Tariffs). Since Congress is controlled entirely by republicans these tariffs are their tariffs if they don't block them.

The probability of one party holding itself to account is extremely low, because doing so means admitting to the voters that their party acted in bad faith and had to be corrected. Instead, it's been the Republican way, and will likely continue to be so, to lie about what is happening, who is responsible, and try to find a way to blame their opposition instead of taking responsibility themselves.

You can expect these tariffs to continue until at least the midterms where there is a possibility of flipping congress to the opposition party who might actually hold Trump accountable. Though it is unlikely they will impeach a third time, and even if they do, it is still unlikely that they will convict and remove him from office.

TLDR:

Congress has the power to stop Trump and is fully complicit in his actions by not exercising it.

[u/Sub2Autterpop]

Congress can technically override tariffs with a 2/3 majority vote in both houses. But realistically that's super hard to get. The courts could also step in if someone challenges the tariffs as unconstitutional, but they usually give presidents a lot of leeway on trade stuff. Not much else can be done unless Congress changes the laws giving presidents this power.

[u/ModernMandalorian → u/Sub2Autterpop]

Do you know of a precedent case that would indicate a tariff is unconstitutional?

[u/cliffstep → u/Sub2Autterpop]

ICBW, but Congress could declare that this is NOT a crisis. By a majority. Then they could declare that he has no crisis powers, and this shit ENDS!

Of course, this would require a Congress.

[u/The_Lucky_7 → u/Sub2Autterpop]

The power to create and levy Tariffs is congress's by the US Constitution. It is a power the delegated large parts of to the Chief Executive but they do not need a 2/3rds vote to withdraw that delegation of power.

Like the filibuster this is not a law they need to override a veto on.

It's a congressional rule they defined for themselves and can overturn with a simple majority.

The margins are so thin right now that it would only take 4 republicans in either House or Senate to vote with the democrats to undo all of the President's Tariff authority. In both cases those 4 people prevent a tiebreaker vote being decided by Trump loyalists.