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By The RepresentUs Team July 18, 2025 |
📌 Why this matters: Tariffs can raise prices on cars, clothes, food, and other everyday goods, hurting American families and small businesses. But the bigger problem? One person, the president, can impose these taxes without approval from Congress or input from the public. That undermines our system of checks and balances and concentrates power in the hands of one office. In a healthy democracy, decisions this big should involve the people.
What are tariffs?
In simplest terms, tariffs (sometimes called “duties”) are taxes on goods that are imported into the United States from other countries. When the U.S. government places tariffs on things like steel, solar panels, or coffee beans, it’s essentially charging businesses a fee to bring that product into the country. Often, a business will pass this increased cost of doing business onto you, the consumer, resulting in you paying higher prices.
Tariffs have long been part of America’s economic fabric, dating as far back as the American Revolution. The Townsend Acts of 1767 passed by the English Parliament imposed tariffs on glass, tea, paper, paint and other goods that were imported into the American colonies, prompting widespread anger among American colonists (“No taxation without representation”).
Because tariffs can dramatically shape the industries we work in and the prices we pay for goods, it’s important that We, The People, as concerned Americans understand how tariffs are applied and who holds their power.
Who has the power to impose tariffs?
Congress has the power. It’s explicitly laid out in the U.S. Constitution in Article I, Section 8:
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
This Constitutional power to raise taxes, allocate funds, and control government spending is sometimes called the power of the purse and it’s one of the key features of our system of government checks and balances. With the power of the purse, Congress can influence the Executive Branch by funding or withholding funds on certain initiatives and make sure that the will of the people is represented in how money is raised and spent.
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🤔 So then why is the president imposing so many tariffs? Can Congress stop tariffs?
Congress has voluntarily given up its authority over tariffs and delegated it to the president.
Since 1930, Congress has passed several pieces of legislation that have handed different levels of authority over tariffs over to the president including:
- Tariff Act of 1930 (Section 338) – Lets the president raise tariffs on countries that discriminate against U.S. goods
- Trade Expansion Act of 1962 (Section 232) – Lets the president impose tariffs if imports are seen as a threat to national security
- Trade Act of 1974 (Sections 122, 201, 301) – Lets the president impose tariffs to fix trade imbalances, respond to import surges, or punish unfair trade practices by other countries
- International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA) – Lets the president impose tariffs or trade restrictions during a declared national emergency, even without congressional approval
Presidents from both parties have used this unchecked authority. President Biden has continued many of the tariffs from President Trump’s first term. The issue isn’t just who’s in power, it’s that any president can wield this tool with little accountability.
The issuing of tariffs by the president bypasses nearly every check and balance that normally applies to a president’s power.
Is it problematic that the president has this power?
In recent decades, Congress has increasingly handed power to the president, especially on foreign policy, because it allows lawmakers to avoid tough, politically risky decisions and enables the Executive Branch to act more quickly and decisively.
On tariffs, this delegation can offer some benefits: it allows the president to respond rapidly to urgent issues like job losses or national security threats. For example, the president issued tariffs in 2020 after the Department of Commerce released a report that recommended tariffs after finding that heavy reliance on imported steel posed a risk to U.S. defense and national security. In an era where Congress often struggles to do even the most basic of its functions, this kind of presidential agility can seem appealing.
However, the issuing of tariffs by the president bypasses nearly every check and balance that normally applies to a president’s power.
Tariffs are:
- Not subject to public comment or transparency rules
- Not subject to judicial review before they go into effect in most cases
- Not overseen by Congress through the normal regulatory process
Presidents can impose tariffs with little evidence, no economic analysis, and few institutional checks on this authority. For something that so deeply affects Americans’ jobs and the prices we pay for goods, maybe our representatives in Congress should step in and provide oversight and accountability on our behalf (No taxation without representation, anyone?)
Is the president abusing tariff power?
Without safeguards, oversight, or accountability, the president can use tariffs (or the threat of tariffs) as a lever for issues beyond protecting American industries or job/national security.
We’re seeing this in real time with the Trump Administration who has stretched the definitions of “national emergencies” to justify imposing tariffs on Mexico not for trade or economic reasons but to enforce his immigration agenda.
The same goes for Trump’s announcement of a 50% tariff on all Brazilian imports. This has nothing to do with trade–it’s purely a move to protect his political ally, former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro from criminal prosecution. Trump ally Steven Bannon said the quiet part out loud: “If you drop the trial and drop the charges, the tariffs go away.”
That’s not economic policy. That’s extortion.