The tariffs President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday are massive in size and scope, Indeed, some early analysis indicates Trump has raised the United States average tariff rate to higher than did the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 that contributed to the American people’s suffering in the Great Depression. A big difference, though, is that Trump on his own was able to impose his sweeping tariffs this week, while the 1930 tariffs were imposed via legislation approved by votes and in the United States House of Representatives and Senate and then signed into law by President Herbert Hoover.
Though similarly costly for the American people as the new tariffs, the 1930s tariffs were at least put in place via a process more aligned with constitutional dictates. Among powers granted to Congress via Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution is the power to impose tariffs, though with limits that as with much else in the Constitution with time have been neglected. The Constitution does not make it a presidential power.
The state of things is that Congress has passed legislation to delegate further and further to the executive branch the power to impose tariffs. This seems unconstitutional, but it has been the way things have worked out over many decades. Thus we have the situation where the choices of one man regarding tariffs can in one day turn the world economy on its ear and subject the American people to significant new tariff tax burdens.
