November 9, 2025
If This Isn’t an Emergency, What Is?
By John F. Di Leo
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.
On the one hand, Article I, Section 8 assigns the responsibility to set duty rates to Congress, but in so many instances, Congress has assigned that power over to the president. On the other hand, Article II, Section 2 assigns the power to negotiate with other countries to the president alone, though treaties require Senate confirmation.
There have been disagreements for decades on which agreements are treaties (requiring Senate consent) and which are not. This disagreement has led numerous Democrat administrations into committing to outrageous international agreements that Republicans blocked from passage, but the incumbent administrations supported and forced America to comply with them anyway, and we were freed of their onerous obligations only when Republicans returned to the White House and canceled them through executive orders.
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https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/11/if_this_isn_t_an_emergency_what_is.html
