Our presidents have most always had the authority to impose tariffs in such circumstances. I don't know the details and and I doubt Americans do, but a lot more could be done than has been done in past decades.
Some of the authority might have been surrendered in some trade agreements, or might be in the future. Those are things our politicians don't like to talk about.
I wish Trump would get into some factual details about what our president is empowered to do now and put that in his speeches.
I think we should produce everything that does into all our military equipment and material and assembly it all here.
had to do some research. I’m a million times worse than eve. This was interesting if not partial...
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9C03EFDB1339EF3ABC4952DFBE668389639EDE
otherwise, wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariffs_in_United_States_history
opinion on history (always interesting)
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/truth-about-trade-history
Just read The Truth about Trade in History.
“Economists and historians continue to debate how important the Smoot-Hawley tariff was in causing the Great Depression.11 Whatever the degree, the effect certainly was adverse and the tariff was certainly bad policy. As Figure 2 indicates, world trade virtually collapsed following passage of the Smoot-Hawley tariff. Thus, if that tariff was not the single cause of the Great Depression, it certainly made a bad situation worse.”
oops.