Donald Trump is considering declaring a “national economic emergency” to legally justify his plan to impose punishing tariffs on nations the U.S. trades with.
It’s not as draconian as it sounds. The declaration is a legal gambit to allow Trump to build a new tariff regime using the International Economic Emergency Powers Act (IEEPA), which enables the president to manage imports during a national emergency.
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The IEEPA was enacted in 1977 and allows the president “to prohibit certain financial transactions following a declaration of an ‘unusual and extraordinary’ economic circumstances.”
What intrigues Trump is that the declaration of a national economic emergency allows the president to impose tariffs without strict requirements to prove that the tariffs are necessary.
Trump used the IEEPA in 2019 to
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