(The Washington Examiner)—The battle over tariffs has shifted to the federal courts. The Supreme Court may have the last word on whether the Trump administration went too far when it imposed tariffs on both allies and adversaries on “Liberation Day.” Let’s hope the highest court in the land stands on principle and affirms the decision of the Court of International Trade.
The “Liberation Day” tariffs are bad policy because of the unconstitutional manner by which they were imposed and the mere fact that tariffs are taxes. The way they were imposed violates the separation of powers.
The little-known Court of International Trade made some big news on the battle over tariffs. The CIT was created in 1890 as an arm of the Treasury Department. Over the years, the law was changed to shift the court from one under the auspices of the executive branch, Article II of the Constitution, to one under the judicial branch, Article III. In 1930, Congress made the court a federal court with jurisdiction over tariffs and import duties.
The court recently heard a case brought by the Liberty Justice Center and several states. A three-justice panel of the CIT held on Wednesday that “the Constitution assigns Congress the exclusive powers to ‘lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises,’ and to ‘regulate Commerce with foreign Nations.’…
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Author: Brian Darling