Balkinization  

Wednesday, November 05, 2025

Couple of Observations About Today's Tariff Argument

Gerard N. Magliocca

First, Neal Katyal was channeling Christoper Walken at times with the theme of: "I got a fever. And the only prescription . . . is more Youngstown." We'll see how effective that was.

Second, some questions more or less asked whether IEEPA could be read to grant tariff authority in a dire emergency. The problem is that President Truman made that argument about Article II in Youngstown and lost in a situation that was closer to a real emergency than our trade deficits with Iceland or Singapore.

Third, the Solicitor General's argument that tariffs are regulations of foreign commerce rather than taxes are totally at odd with a century of American history in which the two parties were often divided on tariff policy as a matter of domestic taxation. Go and read party platforms until the Sixteenth Amendment was ratified and could see that well enough. 




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