“President Donald Trump claims that the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 grants him the power to deport certain Venezuelan-born aliens without due process, based on the mere allegation of membership in a criminal street gang.
But the text of the Alien Enemies Act does not allow the president to do anything of the sort. “Whenever there shall be a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation or government, or any invasion or predatory incursion shall be perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States, by any foreign nation or government,” the act states, the president may direct the “removal” of “all natives, citizens, denizens, or subjects of the hostile nation or government, being males of the age of fourteen years and upwards, who shall be within the United States, and not actually naturalized.”
The crimes of the alleged members of the street gang Tren de Aragua do not meet this legal standard. There is no “declared war” between the United States and Venezuela, and there is no “invasion or predatory incursion” of the U.S. by “any foreign nation or government.” The gang is not a foreign state, and the gang’s alleged crimes, heinous as they may be, do not qualify as acts of war by a foreign state. Trump’s frequent talk about a rhetorical “invasion” of the U.S. by undocumented immigrants utterly fails to satisfy the law’s requirements.”
“The direct cost of President Donald Trump’s trade war will be borne by American consumers and businesses—of that, there should no longer be much debate.
But trade wars also come with indirect costs and unforeseen consequences. Some of those show up on balance sheets in the form of lower profits, losses in the stock market, or stagnating wages. Some are best counted under the Christmas tree, where higher prices might mean fewer toys (as the president now admits) and other goodies that make life a little more joyful, as tariffs squeeze wallets and reduce discretionary income.
Others are trickier to sum up, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
“The administration’s trade policy sends a message to the world: America is an unreliable ally that sees you only as a source of wealth; and if you don’t have wealth, you’ll pay for it,””
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“”The United States’ role as a linchpin of this system has enhanced its position as the pre-eminent global power,” writes Murray. “Yet the new administration’s curious tariff policy threatens all of this, for no discernible benefit.””
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“American soft power rides on the back of the global trading system. American investment and purchasing power help build factories and lift people out of extreme poverty. For the countries that benefit from all that, American interests are first and foremost. Take away the benefits of trade, and the rest fades too, warns Murray.
Higher tariffs and reduced global trade “kills US soft power with these nations and leaves a geopolitical vacuum into which US rivals like China will expand,” he writes. “High tariff rates on south east Asian countries, for example, will exacerbate the drift of those countries towards the Chinese sphere of influence that has been happening in the wake of trade uncertainty since the first Trump administration.””
“Trump had used the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose tariffs on nearly all imports to the U.S., even though that law narrowly authorizes presidential actions only in response to “an unusual and extraordinary threat.”
International commerce is plainly neither of those things, as the court concluded in its ruling. “We do not read IEEPA to delegate an unbounded tariff authority to the President,” the judges wrote. “We instead read IEEPA’s provisions to impose meaningful limits on any such authority it confers.”
By reviewing the actions of the executive branch to ensure they comport with the underlying law, the Court of International Trade merely fulfilled the constitutional role of the judiciary. ”
“High-end medical devices, including those made by American manufacturers, may be especially vulnerable as many machines are built of components from a dozen vendors around the world. Some scanners cost millions of dollars and are so cutting-edge that hospitals publish a press release when they arrive.”
“There’s nothing “hostile and political” about informing the public of the negative consequences of poor economic policy. Were Amazon actually to go through with such a plan, they would be doing America a public service, not serving “a Chinese propaganda arm.””
“Americans today are vastly better off than they were 50 years ago. After adjusting for inflation, household incomes have risen by about 50 percent—more than double what raw census data suggest. Unemployment remains near historic lows. Over the past three decades, the private service sector has created about 40.5 million net new jobs, many in high-wage, high-skill fields like health care, finance, and professional services.
Meanwhile, U.S. industrial output has surged. It’s now at its all-time high but with fewer workers thanks to stunning productivity gains. As economist David Autor notes, the so-called hollowing out of the middle class involves many workers moving up into higher-skill, higher-paying occupations.
None of this means that the labor-force detachment problem should be ignored. It does mean that the story is more complicated than Trump’s “China stole our jobs” narrative suggests.”
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“The deeper problem exposed by the China shock wasn’t trade—it was America’s fading economic dynamism. In past generations, when industries declined, workers moved. They retrained. They found new opportunities. Today, many displaced workers simply stay put even as jobs emerge elsewhere.
Government policy plays an enormous role. Over time, policymakers have built a dense thicket of regulations and disincentives that trap people where they are and discourage adaptation.
Restrictive zoning and land-use legislations have sent housing costs in high-wage cities through the roof, pricing out workers who would otherwise migrate toward opportunity. Economists estimate that even modest housing deregulation would allow more Americans to live and work where their skills are most valued.
Another culprit is occupational licensing. Today, nearly one-third of U.S. workers must obtain some kind of government license to do their jobs, up from just 5 percent in the 1950s. These barriers disproportionately affect low-income workers and create huge hurdles to interstate mobility, effectively locking people into stagnant local economies.
Then there’s Social Security Disability Insurance. Reforms in the 1980s expanded eligibility with broader, more subjective criteria. Today, many prime-age men outside the labor force report being disabled even as overall health has improved and physically demanding jobs have declined. The effect is less labor-force reentry—and, thus, worse long-term prospects—for workers on the margin.”
“economic development officials and lawmakers from several states say that the uncertainty fueled by Trump’s on-again, off-again trade wars is keeping many foreign businesses from pouring money into the U.S. market right now. And it signals the uneven impact the tariffs are having on reshoring American manufacturing — Trump’s stated goal for raising rates to the highest levels in a century.”
“Reuters reported this week that as a result of Trump’s tariffs, Ford Motor Co. will raise prices on three of its models by as much as $2,000 apiece. Days earlier, the company said it expected the tariffs to reduce annual earnings by $1.5 billion, even after making efforts to avoid U.S. import duties.
Rivian, which makes luxury electric vehicles from a single plant in Illinois, also announced this week that it expected to deliver fewer vehicles and spend more money this year as a result of the tariffs.
Then on Thursday, The New York Times reported that Toyota “predicted a $1.3 billion hit from President Trump’s tariffs in April and May alone.”
In a March executive order, Trump slapped a tariff of 25 percent on all imported automobiles, as well as automotive parts like engines, transmissions, and electrical components. The only exception was for those covered under the U.S.–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA), in which case the tariff only applied to the portion of the vehicle’s value not “attributable to parts wholly obtained, produced entirely, or substantially transformed in the United States.””
“Donald Trump doesn’t think Americans deserve stuff. The right number of pencils for a family? Five. The right number of dolls for a little girl? Two, maybe three. His comments in recent interviews bear a striking similarity to those of left-wing Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.), who in 2015 famously bemoaned that consumers have too many deodorant options.
How did Trump—who campaigned on a promise of reducing inflation—become so eager to have Americans pay more for everyday commodities? While Trump may have made overtures to reducing prices, he’s long supported the kinds of economic interventions most likely to lead to inflation. And if you believe that protectionism is the path to prosperity for everyday Americans, your definition of prosperity starts to change pretty quickly.”
“In 2023, the most recent year for which full data are available, the average U.S. tariff on British goods was 3.3 percent.
That means this “deal” charges American consumers a 10 percent baseline tax on goods that were previously taxed at 3.3 percent. That’s not a win for free trade or lower prices.”