Thursday, April 03, 2025

Bipartisan Bill to Give Congress More Power over Tariffs

Senators have introduced bipartisan legislation to grant Congress more power over instituting tariffs on other countries following President Trump's announcement of wide-ranging taxes on nearly all U.S. foreign trading partners.

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When you've lost Chuck Grassley

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-- Michael McDonald (@electproject.bsky.social) April 3, 2025 at 11:09 AM

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"If passed, the Trade Review Act of 2025 would require the president to notify lawmakers of an imposition or increase in tariffs within 48 hours, explaining the reasoning and providing analysis of the impact on American businesses and consumers.

Congress would need to pass a joint resolution of approval for the new tariffs within 60 days or the additional taxes would expire, and it would also be able to end the tariffs at any time with a resolution of disapproval.

"Trade wars can be as devastating, which is why the Founding Fathers gave Congress the clear Constitutional authority over war and trade," Cantwell wrote in the release.

"This bill reasserts Congress's role over trade policy to ensure rules-based trade policies are transparent, consistent, and benefit the American public."

"Arbitrarily tariffs, particularly on our allies, damage U.S. export opportunities and raise prices for American consumers and businesses," the Washington state Democrat added."

'

Ol' Chucky Grassley must not be worried about getting Primaried by Hair Furor.

#1 | Posted by Corky at 2025-04-03 04:44 PM

Yeah, well good luck with dat.

This typical Lawfare Media deep dive explains why. www.lawfaremedia.org

#2 | Posted by et_al at 2025-04-03 05:32 PM

Bipartisan Bill to Give Congress More Power Over Tariffs

Booo! Hiss!

The American people elected Hair Furor, so we should get all that comes along with it.

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
- Jenna Jameson

#3 | Posted by censored at 2025-04-03 05:37 PM

Fat Donnie Fuqup is making Hoover look good.

#4 | Posted by LegallyYourDead at 2025-04-03 07:54 PM

@#2 ... Yeah, well good luck with dat. ...

Yeah, I do agree.

The lawfaremedia.org citation aside.

imo, Pres Trump has indicated in his actions, that he seems to want to reduce the "equal" aspect of the Constitutional statement of the three branches of our government to have the Executive Branch be supreme.

At this point, in my view, it will be up to the Supreme Court to decide.



#5 | Posted by LampLighter at 2025-04-03 11:39 PM

I hope this happens although glancing at Et Al's #2 doesn't give me confidence.

#6 | Posted by BellRinger at 2025-04-04 01:21 AM

@#6 ... I hope this happens ...

As do I.

And, welcome back.

But your other trolling aliases seem to have had a different approach in your current alias' absence.

#7 | Posted by LampLighter at 2025-04-04 01:43 AM

OK I know how to settle this. Make the law to apply the same tariffs on the same products that other countries charge us.

#8 | Posted by itchyp at 2025-04-04 04:10 AM

You all should realize that the unequal tariffs we experience, the narrow exceptions for select companies etc., are all artifacts of self-dealing by our crooked af reps and their cadre of perma-state appointees and lobbyists.

#9 | Posted by itchyp at 2025-04-04 04:15 AM

"OK I know how to settle this. Make the law to apply the same tariffs on the same products that other countries charge us."

Why?

How would that benefit you or I?

Tariffs are a good way to hurt yourself.

#10 | Posted by madbomber at 2025-04-04 04:20 AM

Tariffs are a good way to hurt yourself.

Is that the reason the entire world uses them against US? They want to hurt themselves?

#11 | Posted by itchyp at 2025-04-04 04:42 AM

bipartisan legislation to grant Congress more power over instituting tariffs

-Of course Congress want 'more power'. They can't peddle the influence without the power.
It's sort of their own fault for paying themselves only 174K+tip. Most can make more than that on just one selfdeal.

#12 | Posted by itchyp at 2025-04-04 05:08 AM

#12 | Posted by itchyp

Trump is stupid: a pile of lead or more likely dumb excrement.

You admire him. You're worse.

#13 | Posted by Zed at 2025-04-04 08:36 AM

Posted by itchyp

Nice to see you so much on the defensive, though. Even if you're too stupid to know that you are.

#14 | Posted by Zed at 2025-04-04 08:48 AM

"Is that the reason the entire world uses them against US? They want to hurt themselves?"

Yes. It means the consumers in those countries are obligated to pay more for the products that they may want to purchase.

Tariffs can be low-impact if they applied like a sin tax. If you're in the market for a Patek Phillipe watch or a Lamborghini, you probably aren't very price conscious. A new toaster or a garbage bin-that's a different story.

#15 | Posted by madbomber at 2025-04-04 12:01 PM

__________
#8 | Posted by itchyp at 2025-04-04 04:10 AM
OK I know how to settle this. Make the law to apply the same tariffs on the same products that other countries charge us.

Settle what? What "problem" is Trump (and you) are trying to solve?

For example, do you think Canada's 40M people should buy the same amount of "stuff" from US, as 340M buy from Canada. Also, in case you didn't know, excluding oil trade, USA has trade "surplus" with Canada. So, should the companies in the US buy oil somewhere else because Trump can't do kindergarten-level math?

Trade deficits are not the [national] problem - countries, for the most part, don't trade with other countries. People in the US, having for the long time the fortune of the world's largest economy and being prodigious consumers of US-made and foreign-made goods (which are often cheaper and/or better-made or have better/bigger/attractive brands that consumers want) keep buying more of smaller economies' goods, while people in smaller economies keep buying more advanced US services (USA has substantial service trade surplus vs the "rest of the world") and particular products (e.g., technology, military etc.) where we have what David Ricardo called "comparative advantage" (see Paul Krugman's excellent essay Ricardo's Difficult Idea - web.mit.edu - TL;DR: "Free trade good").

drudge.com

drudge.com - Is Trump Trying to Engineer a Recession?

Since 1980s we have been importing disinflation from other countries, initially too poor to buy our products (or debt), but growing and becoming richer and more capitalist in the process, e.g., "Made in" Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, India, China (since Deng Xiaoping), Vietnam etc., while at the same time supplying them with non-inflationary expansion of USD, thus maintaining / expanding "reserve status" of USD and promoting more trade, which increases our service and manufacturing, i.e., "expanding the global economic pie" rather than trying to grab larger share of smaller one.

98% of the world trade is governed / covered by WTO and/or other FTAs. Most tariffs are either on goods we don't sell in significant quantities in particular geolocation (governed by their specific rules, like medical content, trademarks etc. or there is no sufficient demand for import) or have been exempted for particular negotiated reasons and don't significantly affect either irrelevant [national] "balance of trade" or GDP - at most about 0.50 one-time increase in GDP - definitely not worth all the noise, let alone world-wide trade war which will alienate long-time trading partners, re-route major supply chains away from the [no longer reliable, if not outright "hostile"] US suppliers

How is that "abuse" and "rape" of the USA, when we have been the biggest beneficiaries of generally free trade?

Even CNBC's Jim Cramer, who has been against "free trade" and is for what he calls "fair trade" and tariffs, railed against Trump's idiotic trade war: www.thedailybeast.com - Jim Cramer Hits Trump With Kiss of Death as 'Liberation Day' Looms - 2025-04-01

So Trump needs to change the hard-won free-trade (aka "capitalism") world order (to our detriment) because Prof. Peter Navarro put a bug in Trump's hole in the head where brain should usually reside, and Trump thinks that he "invented" something new, that "no one has ever seen before." It also, along with trying to expand crypto's role in US economy (and self-dealing, as usual), jeopardizes "reserve status" of USD, with serious implications for US economic well-being.
__________

#16 | Posted by CutiePie at 2025-04-06 04:31 AM

In 1989 after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena were ousted. A hasty court-martial tribunal was convened, charging them with:

-Genocide: Over 60,000 victims
-Subversion of state power by organizing armed actions against the people and state power.
-Destruction of public property.
-Undermining the national economy.
-Trying to flee the country with $1 billion deposited in foreign banks.

Found guilty, the couple was executed by firing squad on 25 Dec 1989: preview.redd.it

Now compare with the 2025 Dotard Trumpf junta.

#17 | Posted by C0RI0LANUS at 2025-04-06 05:18 AM

@#2 ... well good luck with dat. ...

Agreed.

My reason: Pres Trump seems to have all but killed any power that Congress may hold over the Executive branch.


#18 | Posted by LampLighter at 2025-04-06 05:19 AM

__________
#12 | Posted by itchyp at 2025-04-04 05:08 AM
-Of course Congress want 'more power'. They can't peddle the influence without the power.
It's sort of their own fault for paying themselves only 174K+tip. Most can make more than that on just one selfdeal.

No, actually they want to claw the power back, as Congress should have never delegated it to Executive / President in the first place, albeit with good intentions - to facilitate rapid execution of it in case of "product dumping" at costs below export country's production and negotiating trade agreements - which have not caused problems, until Trump decided to grossly abuse it - just like he did with many other laws in his personal-business-political-scam_artist life, which got him impeached twice and should have put him in prison, if not for the gross incompetence of Biden, DOJ, federal and state prosecutors and help from corrupt judges and lawyers.

"In recent years, Presidents Trump and Biden have exercised an aggressive level of executive authority to raise tariffs on imported goods. Most of these tariffs have been implemented under broad authority delegated by Congress to combat unfair practices or national security. As a result, tariff revenue as a share of total tax receipts peaked in 2019 over the last eighty years, surpassing levels not seen since the mid-1970s."

Ah, mid-70s, when we last had [national] trade surplus... and high inflation + stagnant growth ("stagflation") and "malaise" - why not re-live those "good times"?

.
|------- The constitutional authority to levy taxes, including customs duties (tariffs), indisputably rests with Congress under Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. This authority is fundamental to the government's ability to fund its operations, including national defense, public services, and infrastructure spending.

Until the early 1930s, tariffs, like all other tax rates, were determined by Congress. The enactment of the Trade Act of 1930, otherwise known as the Smoot-Hawley Act, exposed some of the risks of imposing large tariffs to protect American workers. Smoot-Hawley Act imposed the second-highest tariffs in American history, targeting agricultural imports to protect American farmers. The act triggered a global trade war - by 1933, U.S. exports had fallen by at least 60% - and deepened the on-going macroeconomic crisis. This would also be the last act implemented by Congress to set tariff rates.

On the heels of this disaster, Congress began a decades-long trend of ceding the authority to lay and collect customs duties to the executive branch. Importantly here, Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1934 granted authority to the president to impose tariffs if imports were found to threaten national security.

The Trade Act of 1974 granted the president new authority to negotiate trade agreements and adjust tariffs, while also creating mechanisms to protect U.S. industries and workers. Section 201 provides a mechanism for the U.S. to protect domestic industries from serious injury caused by import surges, and Section 301 grants authority to the U.S. Trade Representative (a cabinet-level position) to take action against foreign countries that violate trade agreements or engage in practices that are deemed unfair. -------|
.

These kinds of far-reaching decisions should never be left to a single person, just like the right to Presidential pardon (which is unfortunately in the Constitution) which clearly leads to temptation and/or corruption, and needs to be abolished / remedied by Constitutional Amendment... which after what we saw it having been abysmally abused by Trump and Biden recently (but also by Presidents before them) should not be that difficult.
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#19 | Posted by CutiePie at 2025-04-06 05:28 AM

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