Posted on 11/12/2025 5:03:57 AM PST by ChessExpert
The Trump administration’s tariff regime is under consideration at the Supreme Court.
President Trump’s approach — largely focused on the careful and potent use of tariffs as a negotiating tool for so much more than simple trade — is unique and unprecedented, so it’s not surprising that it would be challenged, and that it would reach the High Court.
These cases are not the simple “slam dunk” that many of the president’s opponents think they are. ... So even though the press and punditry may present the issue as if the Trump administration is the first ever to step on the toes of Congress where international relations are concerned, President Trump is just following a well-worn path, trod previously by the Biden years, the Obama years, and the Clinton years.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
It seems to me that President Trump is using tariffs in a way that is much more dynamic than anything experienced in my lifetime, perhaps in the history of the country.
The author makes the argument that we are experiencing a true economic and national security emergency. It seems that prior administrations were asleep (or worse) as our self-sufficiency dripped away.
Emergency? It’s not like we are $38T in debt or something.
2025 Revenues were $5.2T
2019 Expenditures were $4.6T
If we simply spent the same amount as we did in 2019 (which was already too much), we would have a $600B surplus.
“Emergency? It’s not like we are $38T in debt or something.”
If we cut every federal expenditure and just collected taxes and paid down the debt, it would still take 10-15 years to pay off.
That debt is there forever.
It’s an emergency everyday. No the repairable leaks are maintenance. And the real key is appropriating necessary step to maintain the system. Trump has been a mess trying to implement these tariffs. It looks like he doesn’t know what he’s doing. and reduces the effectiveness. Get congress to act.
The big issue and you can tell by the agreements between countries..is Foreign Policy. And that's the President...hands down.
Due to the far greater cost of living here, and thus higher wages, then there is no way America can compete with China (especially) and other foreign sources for items that are no longer made here. China in particular has developed its manufacturing ecosystem so much that is renders the West unable to compete.
CEPR https://cepr.org › voxeu › columns › china-worlds-sole-manufacturing-sup China is the world's sole manufacturing superpower: A line ... - CEPR Jan 17, 2024China's industrialisation is unprecedented. The last time the 'king of the manufacturing hill' got knocked off the throne was when the US surpassed the UK just before WW1
Futurism https://futurism.com › robots-and-machines › western-executives-shaken-visiting-china Western Executives Shaken After Visiting China - Futurism Oct 14, 2025Western executives warn that China's heavily roboticized manufacturing industry could quickly leave the West behind...“There are no people — everything is robotic,” he told The Telegraph. Other executives recalled touring “dark factories” that don’t even need to keep the lights on, as most work is being done around the clock by robots. “You get this sense of a change, where China’s competitiveness has gone from being about government subsidies and low wages to a tremendous number of highly skilled, educated engineers who are innovating like mad,” British energy supplier Octopus CEO Greg Jackson told the newspaper.
What I propose are special manufacturing areas in the US specifically for items that are no longer made in the US, in which workers are like a branch of the military, and can work for whatever wage is offered, and live as armies do for a term they sign up for.
It is a great article. Thanks for posting
The problem comes in the first sentence: “CAREFUL and...”
The IEEPA tariffs - and it’s important to remember, but the article also does not address - are the ones before the Supreme Court, *not* targeted tariffs.
They were not “careful”. They were blunt force, across the board tariffs. Uninhabited wildlife sanctuaries were on the list - and don’t try to sell me nonsense on people playing games with embarkations; the law doesn’t work that way. No nation on earth, under any regulatory scheme, is going to say “Golly, Penguin Island isn’t on the list so I guess they won!”
Products - coffee, for example. Yes, Hawaii grows some (fine) coffee, but even if you turned every acre of arable Hawaiian land into a coffee plantation, it’s not going to hit more than 4% of US demand. And if you think “well, it’s just coffee” - you should read up on East Germany and “kaffee”.
There are dozens of countries around the world you’d never WANT to run a trade surplus with; their entire national GDP is less than the combined earnings of people reading this. Buying an “American manufactured keychain” is beyond their means, never mind what do they need a keychain for when they certainly don’t have vehicles or doors or anything requiring a key.
You want to target China? This case, even if the decision goes against the administration, doesn’t prevent that.
2. If this is an emergency, then anything and everything is an emergency. No, thanks.
Tell me the difference between Republicans & Democrats on spending.
Maybe so, but that's not relevant to this matter. Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution is very broad in assigning the authority of "taxation" to Congress:
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.
I have a tendency to agree with your thoughts.
However, declaring an emergency before an oncoming hurricane is prudent.
The oncoming American catastrophe resulting from a combination of many disparate things can be ameliorated by prudent action prior to the actual event.
Thus, it can be strongly argued that an emergency condition does in fact exist.
If Congress acts on this, might not we have a worse mess? Keep in mind what Congress consists of.
Absolutely!
Imaging the pork, earmarks, grift, and foreign donations that would flow over a 1% change in a tariff. Plus, it would take years to act.
EC
The problem here is that this administration has completely undermined its own arguments about the urgent nature of this “emergency” and the importance of using tariffs to address it when it began changing, postponing, and canceling the tariffs on almost a daily basis through the summer.
ou feel comfortable with permanence when the tariff gambit is actually fluid and continuously changing by design.
The tariffs are I believe, designed to serve at least two purposes.
The first was to gain negotiating leverage with those imposing onerous tariffs and various policies in restraint of American Trade. The President was mostly successful with Canada being an onerously significant exception.
The second objective was to impose a hidden tax that the President always claims is paid by exporters. A tariff remains in the amount of !5% on all imports from all 200 nations.
That permanent tax imposed by the President has been accepted by a Congress that knows it is needed but lacks the political will to actually legislate it into being. That tariff tax will and maybe already has eliminate the spending deficit for FY 2025.
The short run extreme tariffs that were rescinded will apparently be partially refunded to all citizens at $2,000 per person.
Now then, with regard to Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, BC and Yukon, all are in the process of resigning from the Canadian confederation. They have openly expressed the desire to become part of the United states. Not as state #51 but perhaps 51, 52, 53 etc. My guess is that they will not become States but rather territories like Guam and Puerto Rico. All ofvthe West were territories before becoming States.
What are your thoughts on WEXIT?
You do realize that the US Govt was funded by tariffs until wwi? This era of one sided destructive free trade is radical. Trump is restoring sanity.
The raping caused by the lack of tariffs is radical and destructive.
The globalist era of one sided destructive trade pushed by you closet Marxists is radical.
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