Courts block most of Trump's tariffs (05-29-2025--Hour1)

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[00:00:29] So that was a short trade war. No, I'm kidding. It's not over. It's I don't even know. This is why I said, like, we'll see. Let's just wait and see. And so now we are we're in sort of the seeing part, part of the seeing part, like a pre-see part.

[00:00:50] We've got a ruling from a federal court that blocked Donald Trump from imposing sweeping tariffs on imports under an emergency powers law. God, the judiciary out of control. I actually I I'm OK with this ruling. I am. I'm OK with this ruling.

[00:01:13] And I've been hammering away at the the lawyers with the wardrobe change and these injunctions and everything else. This is not of that kind. And I know the Trump administration is is mad that they don't get to do the tariffs and they're going to appeal it. And I'm sure. Right. Like, I have no doubt about their intentions to appeal to the U.S.

[00:01:36] Supreme Court or something, but I don't know the exact pathway that it has to has to follow because it came from the U.S. Court of International Trade. OK. It's a three judge panel, one of whom is appointed by Donald Trump. Another was a Reagan appointee. The third was an Obama appointee. And the decision was unanimous. And.

[00:02:03] This was part of Trump's Liberation Day tariffs. And what the three judge panel has said is that it exceeded his authority. And I said this from the very beginning. I'm not so sure he can do all of this. I'm not so sure he should do all of this. But I recognize I said at the time, maybe you recall. If you're a first time listener, welcome. But you would not have heard me say this.

[00:02:32] But I said, maybe I am a fish that doesn't know it's wet, you know, because that's the environment I I have just always known. And the environment I've always known was one of free trade, which is different. I would submit then fair trade. Right. I mean, people use these terms. And I think they mean different things, because if you are free trading with a country that employs slave labor in China,

[00:03:01] then I don't think that that's actually fair. Right. Because they have a an artificial competitive advantage in that they don't have to pay their people anything. So. I was willing to. All right, well, let's see. Is he going to use it to negotiate better deals? Is he going to do something else with it? Is it just a negotiating tactic, create the chaos up front and all of that? So I took the position of let's see.

[00:03:32] Let's see what happens. And then we had, you know, this back and forth. We had the escalation of tariffs. We had the reduction in tariffs. We had deals getting cut and all these different things happening. Meanwhile, this case was making its way start. It began and then made its way through the courts. Now, the White House spokesperson, Cush Desai, said that trade deficits amount to a national emergency

[00:04:00] that has decimated American communities, left our workers behind and weakened our defense industrial base. Facts that the court did not dispute. So that's what they're calling a national emergency. But that's not actually what the assortment of law that governs these types of deals, these types of. Well, there's a bunch of different acts that.

[00:04:27] The Trump administration used from declaring the emergency to doing the tariffs. And there were two different sort of buckets that they did the tariffs in. And what the court is saying. That. You need congressional approval because this is what is outlined in the Constitution.

[00:04:51] And Congress cannot delegate away constitutional powers that are prescribed to them. In the Constitution. Now, Trump might still be able to temporarily launch import taxes of 15 percent for 150 days on nations with which the U.S. runs a substantial trade deficit.

[00:05:13] The ruling noted that a president has this authority under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. You're going to hear more about the Trade Act of 1974 as I go over this. It's all throughout the court ruling, which runs about 49 pages. The administration swiftly filed a notice of appeal and the U.S. Supreme Court will almost certainly be called upon to lend a final answer, reports the Associated Press.

[00:05:43] The case was heard by three judges, as I mentioned. Timothy Reif, who was appointed by Trump. Jane Rastani, appointed by Ronald Reagan. And Gary Katzman, an appointee of Barack Obama. The court wrote, quote, the worldwide and retaliatory tariff orders exceed any authority granted to the president by IE EPA.

[00:06:09] That is the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. That was a 1977 law. It's called the IEBA. And maybe when I say it like that, now it sounds familiar. We've we've talked about this before. OK, so you have the. Trade Act of 1974. There is also then a Trade Expansion Act that was from 1962.

[00:06:39] And the ruling. Oh, and the IEBA. So there's three different things going on here. The ruling. From the court left in place any tariffs that Trump put in place using his powers from the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. That's why two of these buckets are being treated differently. One bucket, which was done under the Trade Expansion Act, that is allowed to stand.

[00:07:06] But the one done under or the massive one, like this is where he came out with the big chart, remember? And he's like baseline 10 percent on everybody. And then we're going to nail everybody else with these additional tariffs on top of the 10 percent and all that. That was all under the IEBA. OK. OK. The IEBA is the stuff that has now been. Has now been ruled to be beyond his authority to do.

[00:07:34] Under the Trade Expansion Act, the one that will stand. He put a 25 percent tax on most imported autos, automobiles and parts. As well as 25 percent tax on all foreign made steel and aluminum. Those tariffs depend on a Commerce Department investigation that reveals national security risks from imported products. So that one was. Those were done legit.

[00:08:03] It was filed in the U.S. Court of International Trade, which is a federal court that deals specifically with civil lawsuits involving international trade law. While tariffs must typically be approved by Congress, Trump has said he has the power, like He-Man, to act to address the trade deficits that he calls a national emergency.

[00:08:26] And therein lies the problem is that there is controlling law about. What you deem a national emergency. And Congress's role in doing so. He is facing at least seven lawsuits challenging the levies. The plaintiffs argued that the emergency powers law does not authorize the use of tariffs.

[00:08:53] And even if it did, the trade deficit is not an emergency because the U.S. has run a trade deficit with the rest of the world for 49 straight years. His administration argues that courts approved then President Richard Nixon's emergency use of tariffs in 1971 and that only Congress and not the courts can determine the political question of whether the president's rationale for declaring an emergency complies with the law.

[00:09:21] See, this is the problem is that Congress isn't doing its job. Congress isn't supporting. Look, if you want all of this stuff with Trump and the tax or the tariffs, if you want all these tariffs to be implemented in exactly the way Trump announced them, then Congress needs to codify this stuff. We have different branches of government for a reason.

[00:09:45] And I don't think you get to logically make an argument that the judiciary is overstepping its bounds, as I have on the injunctions front. And that these lone judges in district courts are usurping the power of the president because that's not what they're entitled to do under the rights granted to them by Article 3 of the Constitution.

[00:10:11] You can't make that argument and then turn around and say, yeah, but Congress can totally abdicate their Article 2 powers. No, or sorry, Article 1 powers. Article 2 is the president, I believe. That's not the way it's supposed to work. You guys have this list. You guys are supposed to follow this list. These are your powers. These are your powers.

[00:10:31] And part of the problem is that we have a Congress, and I don't think the founding fathers could have foreseen this, but we have a Congress populated by people that are apparently all too happy to give up any kind of responsibility, a.k.a. power. They're just going to turn it over to anybody else. So this way, we don't get in trouble with the electorate for any of the votes that we now are not casting.

[00:11:23] Here's a great idea.

[00:12:08] The Hellion says, so Biden's tariffs were nonsense, too, or temporary. He bragged about doing them, too. Well, Biden's tariffs were not justified under the same rationale. He did not declare national emergencies for the purposes of doing the tariffs. And you do have the ability to add tariffs. The president under the other, like one of the sections of the law, which will stand.

[00:12:37] He did have the power to do those. It's under the IEPA that he did not. But the court, according to the New York Post, the court stated that Congress is typically responsible for issuing tariffs, not the president alone, and that Trump's rationale for the exception to the rule did not meet the emergency act threshold in order to have him act unilaterally.

[00:13:04] Like, unless you've read through all of the enabling legislation for all of this stuff, right? It's not a like this is not a simple, you know, Trump can do it. And he did it. Now the courts are blocking him. It's this goes back, what, 60 years worth of various pieces of legislation. Into the 60s.

[00:13:26] And so some of the tariffs were done, excuse me, under the IEPA, which is the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. That was the one that was widespread, hitting every single country, 10% baseline, everybody. And then everybody got, you know, additional tariffs on them, customized rates against basically every country on the planet.

[00:13:53] And that was justified by the administration under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. There's the second tranche or bucket that was under the Expanded Trade Act, which is an offshoot, I believe, of the Expanded Trade Act and the Trade Act. So there are those two pieces of legislation.

[00:14:21] And if you read the opinion and look, I am not a lawyer. I'm not an expert in any of this material. I'm just reading through the opinion by the court. And here's like part of what they say. The court does not ask whether a threat is worth dealing with or venture to review the bona fides of a declaration of an emergency by the president.

[00:14:46] So they're not taking up the question of whether or not it is an emergency or not an emergency. Indeed, it says the question here is not whether something should be done. It is who has the authority to do it. That's the question. The court simply asks whether the president's actions deal with an unusual and extraordinary threat.

[00:15:13] And Congress provided the necessary standards for resolving this inquiry when it enacted AIPA. And the court's task is to then apply that. See, what constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat, those parameters are spelled out in the Congressional Act.

[00:15:35] And so the court looks at the act and then they look at the behavior and the actions of the executive branch and they say, do they line up? Are these things lining up? And if they don't line up, then the executive is in the wrong because Congress said this is what the law is. These are the standards you're supposed to follow.

[00:15:58] The court says this requires this duty requires one body of public servants, the judges, to construe the meaning of what another body, the lawmakers, has said. The duty does not abate when foreign economic conduct forms part of the issue. According to the government, there are two ways. The court says that the, quote, deal with an unusual and extraordinary threat provision retains its meaning despite its unreviewability.

[00:16:26] The first is that it binds the president. This means the government states that the president still has to look at and faithfully apply the statute. But what happens if the president does not do so? Does the court still have no role?

[00:16:42] Even if Congress could hypothetically undo the president's invocation of IEPA powers by passing a law to that effect over the president's likely veto, Congress's inherent power to legislate is no substitute for the judicial function of determining the limits of statutory grants of authority. They are making the argument that this can be reviewed by the courts because the White House was saying you can't.

[00:17:10] And so they say, yes, we can, because if they if the legislature says X and you implement Y, the way that you reconcile this is the courts. And they're right. Under our system, they are correct. In my view. All right. If you're listening to this show, you know, I try to keep up with all sorts of current events. And I know you do, too. And you probably heard me say, get your news from multiple sources. Why?

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[00:17:57] I started using Ground News a few months ago and more recently chose to work with them as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how stories get covered and by whom. The blind spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the left and the right. See for yourself. Check dot ground dot news slash Pete. Subscribe through that link and you'll get 15 percent off any subscription. I use the vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature.

[00:18:24] Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports Ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent. All right. So reading from this is page 46 of the court ruling, 46 out of 49. The government's pressure argument, which is. They're trying to get at this idea of how do you deal with.

[00:18:51] These these issues that are arising and so this is what they're kind of testing. What does it mean? What is your definition of dealing with and whatnot? And so the government said, well, we are dealing with trafficking, human trafficking, and this is how we're dealing with human trafficking. By applying pressure on these other countries through the tariffs. Right. The government's pressure argument.

[00:19:17] Concedes, though, that the direct effect of the country specific tariffs, this is specifically about China or Mexico and Canada. That the the direct effect is to simply burden the countries that they're targeting.

[00:19:35] It is the prospect of mitigating this burden, according to the government's argument, that will induce the target countries to crack down on trafficking within their jurisdictions and the trafficking of fentanyl also. Now, however sound this might be as a diplomatic strategy, which the court has no problem. Like you're trying. We understand the goal. You're trying to do this other thing.

[00:19:58] So no matter how sound this is as a diplomatic strategy, it does not comfortably meet the statutory definition. Sited in the IEPA legislation. So it's you can't cite IEPA and then say this is you know, we're doing it in order to force them to pressure them to change their their posture and their actions in limiting the trafficking.

[00:20:26] when IEPA doesn't empower you to do that for that reason. They say it's hard to conceive of any IEPA power then that could not be justified on the same grounds of pressure. If it works in this case, then you could say it for anything. This is a restraining of the executive branch. And I know I wasn't on the air here in WBT. I was up in Asheville at the time in 2015.

[00:20:56] When Rand Paul was running for president, he was one of the candidates for president against Donald Trump at the time. And I preferred Rand Paul because he was the only one talking about reigning in the executive branch. And to me, that's a really important thing to do. That's not to say I don't want to see now like the judiciary reigned in and their abuses. I absolutely do. But this idea of executive overreach is not new.

[00:21:25] And it used to be actually one of the planks in the Republican Party platform. This is something conservatives have been worried about my entire life and before I was born. Executive power overreach. The growth and the power of the imperial presidency. Now, if you're okay with that kind of an approach, then fine. I am not.

[00:21:55] I am not. Because I have lived through enough Democrat presidents that have engaged in this kind of overreach and I've made the same argument. I'm not changing my argument now just because it's a guy that I voted for who's in the office. The government's reading of the IEPA and applying it to pressure would cause the meaning of, quote, deal with an unusual and extraordinary threat

[00:22:23] to permit any infliction of a burden on a counterparty to exact concessions, regardless of the relationship between the burden inflicted and the concessions exacted. If this can mean to, when you say to deal with this thing, to deal with, yeah, to deal with an unusual and extraordinary threat, if that can mean that you can impose a burden until somebody else deals with it, somebody else deals with it,

[00:22:52] not you, but somebody else, then everything is permitted. It means a president may use IEPA to take whatever actions he chooses simply by declaring them pressure or leverage tactics. in order to get some third party to do something about some unrelated threat. Surely this is not what Congress meant when it clarified that I, the IEPA powers, quote,

[00:23:21] may not be exercised for any other purpose. So, again, they're looking at what the law says and they're applying what the law says. And that's what we should expect judges to do, right? Let me go over and talk to Bain. Hello, Bain. Welcome to the program. What's going on? It seems like the definition of emergency

[00:23:49] is kind of what's up in the air right now. And my kind of question, and I agree with everything you said, you did a great job explaining it, does the lack of action by a governing branch over a long period of time constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat? And my take is it's a similar, but this won't match everything. As an analogy, a provider for a family who is, say, 90 to 100 pounds overweight, smokes, gambles,

[00:24:19] is feeding the family well. The kids are happy. They have cars. They got good SATs. The wife's pleased with the country club. But his lifestyle is going to cause him to die. Even in his boss loves him because he's good at his job. And it's the emergency over a long period of time. When we think of emergency, we don't think of, yeah, this is a 60 year emergency. Right. But over time, we just kind of ignore it. Yes.

[00:24:49] But the proper place to address that longstanding problem is in the Congress. Correct. And that's where those responsibilities are vested in the Constitution. Correct. And something has to be changed on that regard if the Congress just ignores it. Yeah. You got to vote out the people that are ignoring it. Yeah. And how do you define ignoring? You're right. And it's a tough one.

[00:25:18] But I agree with where we are right now. But I see the problem. And it's just a lot of stuff is embedded within the way we do things. I use the weight analogy. We don't really think of it as a problem until we get this physical done. And they say, you've got to change. Even though you don't really feel bad. No, but that's something I got to do right now. No. I'll just put that off and we'll just kick the can down the road a little bit and I don't have to make any changes right now.

[00:25:48] Right. And I think we are in an emergency, but I also agree with you and the court that there's nothing written or in law that allows them to address it this way. But I do believe we have an emergency. Right. And this is the right. I agree. And that's why they brought in all of these different laws. Because when you're talking about like the declaration of a national emergency, they talk about that too in their ruling and the limitations that Congress put on the executive branch

[00:26:17] in declaring national emergencies. And they found problems with the White House's argument on that front as well. So this is, again, if you don't like the parameters under which these decisions are being made, then you have to change the parameters. But those parameters were set in place by Congress 50, 60 years ago. So that's the way you have to address it. The problem is Congress refuses to really do any kind of work. That's and pass, you know, reforms. I mean, look at the stuff going on

[00:26:46] with Doge right now. You wrap all of this stuff. I mean, you know, Elon Musk is just dispirited. Yeah. Welcome to the Republican Party, Elon. That's the I mean, that is the Republican Party in a nutshell. Like what we just saw with Musk coming in. He was all exuberant. He was all excited. We're really going to make some differences. Here's how we do it. And then nothing happens. And then he's like, screw this. I'm out of here. Like that's the GOP in a nutshell has been my whole life. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, right. Thanks, man. All right, buddy. I appreciate the call, Bane. All right.

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[00:28:13] Mail orders are accepted too. Get all the details at createavideo.com. We have loaded lines. I will get to you as many as I can as quickly as possible. I just want to read this quickly from KPMG Trade and Customs Services. The court decision was based on the interpretation of IEPA, which the court held does not grant the president unlimited authority to impose tariffs. Such a broad delegation of power would violate constitutional principles, specifically the non-delegation doctrine,

[00:28:43] which requires Congress to provide clear guidelines when delegating its powers, and the major questions doctrine, which demands clear congressional authorization for decisions of significant economic and political impact. And so the worldwide and retaliatory tariffs were found to be beyond the president's authority because they lacked any identifiable limits and thus fall outside the scope of authority granted under IEPA to regulate importation.

[00:29:14] All right, let's go to the phones here. First up is James. Welcome to the show, James. James. Hey, I have two issues here. One, I believe that a number of the rulings we're hearing from the judiciary are judicial overreach. Mm-hmm. I agree. The other one is, the other one is the argument that if we disagree in any way with anything that the president's administration is doing, we need to shut up

[00:29:42] because Donald Trump knows it, knows all. Yeah, I reject that argument as well. It sounds like you do, too. I am not convinced by people telling me to shut up. That is not a convincing or persuadable argument or persuasive argument that's ever worked on me. Well, I don't like these massive bills that Congress passes because every one of them they've passed has had all sorts of horrors stuck in the middle of them. Yeah. You have to mention the fact

[00:30:10] that they all seem to be debt-ridden. Yep. And this one is not all that different from the rest, but anybody who disagrees is being told to shut up. Yeah. Yeah, it's the same thing. It's why I started sniffing a rat with the climate change arguments as well. James, I appreciate the call. Hey, when people say, oh, just stop talking about it, the debate is over, meh, that's usually not the sign you've got a strong argument. Jerry, welcome to the show. Hey, Jerry. Hey, Pete, how you doing? Hey, I'm good. What's up?

[00:30:40] Hey, man. In a society that cares more about keeping up with the Kardashians and who they sleep in with than they do about the Congress and who they vote and how they vote, I think we're never going to get it fixed, buddy. Well, as I've always said, it takes competent, good people to volunteer their time and expertise, or else you're going to be governed by bad and incompetent people. And the longer it takes for people to realize that, the worse off we're all going to be, I suspect. I appreciate the call, Jerry. Let me get Ray on next.

[00:31:10] Hello, Ray. Welcome to the program. Hey, Pete. How you doing? Hey, I'm good. What's up? I just wanted to call and say I call in quite often to your show and others, but when I heard this first ruling about the terrorists, it got me upset, and I thought, well, there they go again. But since you clarified that it's not the same, it might be the same, and I appreciate you doing that, and I thank you for that, and I also thank you

[00:31:40] about being very thorough in everything you talk about. I can really tell you do your homework when you're getting the show ready. And also, just for an instance, like you were reading the 49-page report this morning, and you said, I'm going to read page 46 of 49. It's little things like that that really make it good from my perspective that you say 49

[00:32:08] and you tell us of 46. Yeah. That's kind of my comment. Well, thank you, Ray. No, I appreciate the call. Thanks so much. It's a lot of show prep, and most of it never even makes it on the air, unfortunately. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast. So if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to thepetecalendorshow.com.

[00:32:38] Again, thank you so much for listening and don't break anything while I'm gone.