Will Congress reassert its constitutional authority to impose tariffs?
Congress could reassert its constitutional authority to impose tariffs, say Colin Grabow, a trade-policy scholar at the Cato Institute, and Clark Packard, a trade-policy scholar at the R Street Institute, by passing a bill introduced by senator Mike Lee (R., Utah). Lee’s bill, the Global Trade Accountability Act, would require congressional approval in the form of an up-or-down vote on all significant tariffs. That bill is “the intellectual North Star of a lot of trade wonks,” Packard tells National Review.
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There are other options besides an open legislative revolt. Packard suggests a more limited version of the Lee bill that, rather than rewriting all trade-remedies laws, would require congressional approval only for tariffs that are justified on national-security grounds under section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act. Even if Trump imposes the tariff, Congress could pass a continuing resolution that declined to fund the collection of such duties.
