The majority of the sweeping tariffs Donald Trump imposed during his second term face one final litmus test that will determine whether he can continue to levy them – and also whether businesses are eligible for massive refunds.
That potentially dramatic turn in the tariff saga comes after a federal appeals court ruled on Friday that Trump unlawfully leaned on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose across-the-board duties on countries.
Trump had used those powers to push import tax rates as high as 50% on India and Brazil – and as high as 145% on China earlier this year.
Increasing the uncertainty is not necessarily beneficial either. Businesses won’t want to keep changing their pricing. People don’t want to plan their purchases around whether tariffs are likely to change up or down in the future. Their instinct will be to wait.
The tariffs were illegal in how they were implemented but Congress could easily do it and would follow his instructions as they have done before.
It’s a shit show, as expected.
Uh congress couldn’t easily implement tariffs though. How would they muster 60 votes in the senate to break the filibuster?