alt Hacker NewsExtremely biased comment.
The SC ruling today:
1) Does not stop the president from enacting tariffs, at all. The dissents even spelled out that no actual change would come from this ruling.
2) The ruling creates the absurd scenario where the president can (under this specific law) totally ban ALL imports from a country on whim, but not partially via tariffs. It's akin to being able to turn the AC on or off, but not being allowed to set the temperature.
As usual, interesting discussion about the nuances of this ruling are happening on X. Reddit and HN comments are consistently low-signal like the above.
Replies
If you listen to the oral arguments, this issue was discussed at length.
There are two reasons for this distinction:
1. That's what congress decided. They get to determine tariffs, not the president. If the president doesn't like the law congress passed, he doesn't get to just ignore it.
2. Congress is very jealous of the right to tax and spend. They do not want to hand over this power to the president. Tariffs are taxes. If the president can just impose whatever tariffs he wants, he can raise revenue without asking congress for permission. That would grant the president enormous power to go around congress. Banning imports from a country does not bring in revenue for the president, so it doesn't pose the same risk to congress' power.
Trump has been trying to create a situation in which he can both raise revenue (through tariffs) and spend it however he wants (e.g., through DOGE's arbitrary changes to government spending) without ever asking congress. If he succeeds, the balance of power will be completely destroyed. The president will rule alone.
> discussion about the nuances of this ruling are happening on X
I'm sure they are lol.
It’s not an absurd scenario. The law was written specifically to allow blocking imports from a country.
The nuance is that nothing Congress passed granted to right to tax. Additionally, they did grant the power to partially block imports. Nothing says you have to enact “no imports from Japan” vs. “no imports of networking equipment from Lichtenstein.”