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sschuellertoday at 3:33 PM9 repliesview on HN

The global damage has been done. It took too long and it looks like it will only be partially reversed.

Constitutional changes are required for other countries to trust in the stability of the US in the future.


Replies

tfehringtoday at 3:46 PM

I don’t see how constitutional changes would help. The constitution already creates separation of powers, limits on executive authority, and procedures for removing an unfit president or one who commits serious crimes. But these only matter to the extent that majorities of elected and appointed officials care, and today’s ruling notwithstanding, there’s no political will to enforce any of them. The plurality of American voters in 2024 asked for this, and unfortunately we are all now getting what they asked for and deserve.

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mongoltoday at 3:38 PM

> Constitutional changes are required for other countries to trust in the stability of the US in the future.

For sure. Question is what would be enough to regain trust? I don't really see it happening

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seydortoday at 3:36 PM

I disagree. Despite all the talk and grand announcements of independence, most of the world wants globalization and worked for more of it, but maybe without the US (openings to china/india/LatAm). Now it will most likely be WITH the US. While the US may feel that globalization has been bad for itself (it hasn't - just look at the spectacular US economy) , the rest of the developed world is not in a position to reverse it (due to demographics mostly) and will be happy to jump back in.

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jen729wtoday at 3:37 PM

> Constitutional changes

Y'all have proven how worthless that piece of paper is.

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parineumtoday at 4:07 PM

> Constitutional changes are required for other countries to trust in the stability of the US in the future.

I don't know about trust but the constitution isn't what enabled this type of behavior, it's the legislature. They've been abdicating their duties to executive controlled bodies (FCC, FDA, FTC, EPA, etc.) and allowing the president to rule through executive action unchallenged. They could have stopped these tariffs on day one. SCOTUS isn't supposed to be reactionary, congress is.

The constitution has all the mechanisms in place to control the president, they just aren't being used by the legislature.

It's a tricky problem that has a number of proposed solutions. I'm not going to act like it's a silver bullet but I think open primaries in federal elections would go a _long_ way towards normalizing (in the scientific meaning) the legislature and allowing people who want to do the job, rather than grandstand, into the offices.

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root_axistoday at 7:35 PM

Good luck ratifying any constitutional amendments that are in any way a response to MAGA.

SilverElfintoday at 3:55 PM

This is probably true. Even before this ruling Trump and Bessent and Lutnick have spoken about how they would react to such a ruling. And it looks like they’re going to do the same thing Democrats do when they don’t like a SCOTUS ruling, and try to implement the same tariffs in a slightly different way to effectively ignore the ruling. We have to fix this. The Supreme Court’s rulings and the US Constitution have to matter. There must be consequences for ignoring them - like the president or lawmakers going to jail.

Even if part of the tariffs are rolled back, we may see other ones remain. And I bet they will not make it easy for people to get their money back, and force them into courts. Not that it matters. If people get their money back, it will effectively increase the national debt which hurts citizens anyways.

And let’s not forget the long-term damage of hurting all of the relationships America had with other countries. If Trump wanted to use tariffs as a tool for emergency purposes, he should have just taken action against China and made a case around that (pointing to Taiwan, IP theft, cyber attacks, etc). Instead he implemented blanket tariffs on the whole world, including close allies like Canada.

In the end, my guess is China and India gained from this saga. And the Trump administration’s family and friends gained by trading ahead of every tariff announcement. Americans lost.

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buzzerbetrayedtoday at 5:41 PM

I love how it’s “global damage” when the US tariffs counties that are already tariffing them. But no, unfortunately the rest of the world knows the US’s value.

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