The politics of tariffs after Trump

President Trump appears to have turned Democrats into tariff skeptics. Is this just partisan opposition? Perhaps. But Democrats are not just talking about the costs of his tariffs. They are also challenging the presidential powers used to impose them. That points to a potentially more durable realignment in U.S. trade politics, one that rewriting the statutes could help make stick. 

On the campaign trail, Democrats are quick to point out that Trump’s tariffs raise costs and undermine “affordability.” No surprise there. Most Americans agree with this view. A January Council on Foreign Relations-Morning Consult poll found that more than 65 percent of respondents believed tariffs made everyday goods less affordable. 

But Democrats increasingly take their critique a step further, looking past the tariffs themselves to Trump’s whack-a-mole strategy for preserving them. After the Supreme Court rejected Trump’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose sweeping tariffs, the administration pivoted to other statutes.

But this strategy has also been challenged. In May, the Court of International Trade held that Trump’s 10 percent tariffs exceeded the authority Congress had delegated under Section 122, rejecting the administration’s effort to equate the U.S. trade deficit with the “large and serious” balance of payments problem envisioned by the statute. That decision has been stayed pending appeal.

Trump’s Section 301 “forced labor” tariffs are also under legal review. The Court of International Trade recently questioned whether the government had established the necessary nexus between the conduct of each targeted country and the statutory basis for........

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