Now Instead Of Trump COURTS Flip-Flop On Tariffs

I’ll try to make this short because when it comes to Trump and his tariffs the news changes almost daily. He slaps them on, then goes “TACO” (Trump Always Chickens Out – an acronym that’s gotten under his skin btw) and reduces or postpones them taking effect. If all that wasn’t enough to create major problems for the economy and consumers the Courts are now fully in the same mode.

It was only yesterday that the United States Court of International Trade invalidated Trump’s use of a 1977 law that as far as he was concerned gave him ’emergency powers’ on which to base most of his tariffs. That unanimous ruling I should note included a judge appointed by Trump himself! I read news about the ruling and took the experts at their word that it was game over for Trump. This is after all a Court specifically established to deal with, you know TRADE issues including tariffs. We were told how sound the ruling was and the legal and Constitutional underpinnings the judges cited in telling Trump to stick to his own lane. That this tariff stuff was Congress’ thing to deal with. Or not.

As the linked article notes in a different court ruling a judge also blocked Trump from collecting tariffs from a couple of Illinois based toy importers. The two rulings were a double whammy and one can be forgiven for thinking that Trump’s tariffs were dead. And more importantly couldn’t be revived like that fictional character Jason in Friday the 13th movies.

What a difference a day makes. As this article from USA Today tells us Trump, just as we knew he would appealed.  Again, the pundits were sure appealing would be a quick road to nowhere. I assumed he’d be shot down at the appellate level and SCOTUS wouldn’t want to touch it. End of story. Incredibly however the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (the one in DC) brought Trump Tariffs back from the dead! At least for now. They’ve stayed yesterday’s rulings and have told the various entities to file their briefs in early June. I don’t know that a hearing date has been set however.

So the court that is the expert on this got overruled and by a Circuit that one would assume from past rulings isn’t amenable to Trump ignoring the law and court rulings. Maybe it was knowing he’d go straight to SCOTUS that did it. Perhaps they thought they’d do most of SCOTUS’ work for it.  Then SCOTUS could look at their “Sorry Trumpty-Dumpty’ ruling and decline Cert. Then again we saw this play out before and it didn’t go well. Remember Trump’s claim of ‘Presidential Immunity’ and how sure everyone was that SCOTUS would let a bulletproof appellate ruling from that same Circuit stand?

That’s how things SHOULD have played out and had the law and system worked the way it should have Trump would have been tried and almost certainly CONVECTED of felonies in DC. In which case we would have a second Trump Presidency. It became apparent that SCOTUS was going to allow Trump to ‘run out the clock’ and while we were pissed we figured the case would continue during the summer. Motions would be filed that might do in Trump’s candidacy even if he didn’t go on trial until after the election.

But nooooooo. SCOTUS went and MADE UP a reason to give sweeping immunity to Presidents. I’ll guarantee you that if a Democrat gets back in the WH a case will appear right away where they dial it back!  What I fear in this case is we might see a repeat. Lower courts issue sound rulings based solidly in the law and Constitution and SCOTUS invents a way to give Trumpty powers they’d never even consider giving to any other President.

I hope I’m wrong. I hope that the DC Court of Appeals will quickly hold a hearing and quickly rule. Hopefully before the end of June. And then SCOTUS will do the right thing and tell Trump to go pound sand. Or at least in their polite legal language suggest he go to Congress to get what he wants. After all the GOP controls both the House and Senate.  In the meantime however businesses and consumer are screwed.  Even rich folks. Investors and big banks and financial firms because they HATE uncertainty.  So stay tuned folks. I have a feeling this is going to be ‘bigly’ news in the next few weeks or so.

***From Ursula*** Zoomers, if you’re able to contribute in any way, we could use help. I’ve been ill and recuperating from a brief hospitalization. Times are tough for political commentary to begin with, and that’s been the case since November 5. Half the country is in a major depression. But we need to keep on keeping on. This too shall pass and there will be a brighter, post-Trump day if we work for it. Please join us and help if you can. Thank you. Ursula

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