President Trump has weaponized tariffs to upend the global rules of international trade — but can his policies withstand the peanut butter test?
On Wednesday, a three-judge panel, deliberating in a federal courtroom in Lower Manhattan, considered the most far-reaching legal challenge to the president’s aggressive use of national security to justify placing levies on steel and aluminum imports from Europe as well as from Canada, Mexico, China and other nations.
The case, filed by an alliance of steel importers, revolves around an important constitutional question: whether a provision of United States trade law, known as Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, gives the president too much power over taxes and tariffs — powers that the founding fathers explicitly granted to Congress.
Mr. Trump has used Section 232 to impose tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum after a Commerce Department investigation determined the metals pose a threat to national security by degrading the American industrial base. Mr. Trump has also initiated investigations into whether imports of uranium, as well as autos, pose a national security threat and should somehow be limited.
