Trump’s illegal tariffs plus illegal wars equal global economic crisis
Every American voter should keep a simple equation in mind when voting this fall in the mid-term elections.
“President Trump’s illegal tariffs + President Trump’s illegal wars = economic crisis that affects everyone globally.”
The President’s global economic crisis includes higher prices for all U.S. domestic consumers, decreasing financial wealth as markets gyrate, and eroding business confidence amidst continuing uncertainty with continuing assaults on the rule of law. His so-called “Golden Age” is a mirage on the horizon leading to November.
Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs a year ago were found to be illegal and unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
His war in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean against civilian boats without public proof of any crimes being committed is illegal under U.S. military law and international law and unauthorized by Congress, resulting in the murder of scores of innocent noncombatants on the high seas.
His intervention in Venezuela to extract President Maduro and his wife to enforce a New York indictment was an act of aggression and without Congressional notification or authorization.
His war of choice against Iran without any imminent threat, which now has engulfed the entire Middle East and threatens to spread to Europe, is also illegal and unconstitutional. It also tragically results in needless deaths of U.S. service members and civilians including the mistaken targeting of an Iranian girls school. The President’s “little excursion” into Iran emulates Russia’s illegal invasion and war crimes in Ukraine.
His threats to invade Denmark to secure Greenland as part of a future U.S. security shield may not be illegal, but they are senseless and foreboding, and they continue. Any such folly will be the end of NATO’s defensive alliance against Russian imperialism in Europe.
Moreover, if the President insanely does attack Denmark over Greenland then he will have directly aided and abetted an enemy of the United States by ending NATO. Russia is now an active belligerent siding with Iran in Trump’s Middle East war. Any such move by Trump would be the crowning achievement of former KGB agent and Russian war criminal Vladimir Putin’s career.
Trump’s unilateral blockade of Cuba is illegal under international law and has not been authorized by Congress. Recent attempts to pass a Senate resolution to keep American forces out of Cuba failed on a procedural point of order. The President’s bloviation of easily “taking” Cuba and doing what he wants with it may not yet have crossed a legal line, but doing so without an imminent threat from a severely weakened country on the cusp of a humanitarian crisis without access to oil, other critical imports, and prolonged electrical blackouts is another Trump-induced disaster in the making.
Under our Constitution, Article I, only the Congress has the power over taxes and tariffs. The President’s only Constitutional role under Article II with taxes and tariffs is to faithfully administer what Congress legislatively delegates to the executive branch of government.
Under our Constitution, only the Congress has the authority to declare war and appropriate the necessary funds to support our military, defense, and national security. The President’s authority is limited as Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy. These distinct and separate powers have been stretched, blurred, and abused by Presidents in the past. Nevertheless, the Constitution is clear when it comes to who has the power to get the United States into war.
President Trump has tried to be cute and call his war a “military operation,” even going to far as to dismiss it as a “little excursion,” which in reality was an incursion into a sovereign country, regardless of how despised Iran’s extremist theocracy is internationally. But even he and his cabinet officials slip and call it a “war.” On a recent return from a taxpayer-financed Florida golf weekend, the President told travelling reporters that his “wars” keep him busy.
Space does not permit a full accounting of the economic chaos Trump singlehandedly has unleashed to the detriment of people everywhere. As elections approach, watch three market signals: rising prices for gasoline, oil, food, and other necessities of life; increasing business uncertainty about investments and supply chains; and continuing market gyrations that destroy personal and corporate wealth.
For the most part, Article III courts are holding firm in support of the Constitution and the rule of law. But, it’s way past the time for Congress to reassert its Constitution authority and, yes, responsibility under Article I to try to limit the economic pain Trump is imposing on everyone – including voters – that directly results from his illegal tariffs and equally illegal and unauthorized wars.
Congress has the power, including the power of the purse, to reverse Trump’s senseless tariffs and stop his unauthorized wars of choice before they do even more harm to our nation, our standing on the world stage, and the global economy. Congress must act as soon as it returns from its next recess . . . before it’s too late.