Ana Swanson

And in fact, you know, some of his advisors preferred those other options because they were less vulnerable to a court challenge.

So now he's kind of going back to that original playbook, right?

And so there are a few different authorities.

One important one is called Section 301.

It's run by the Office of the United States Trade Representative.

They'll carry out investigations into unfair trade practices and can levy tariffs that way.

It's what the president used against China in his first term.

He also has another called Section 232.

which allows for tariffs on the basis of national security.

And there are a lot of tariffs that have been levied that way as well.

So the administration has put in place this 15% tariff for now that's a flat rate for the world.

Those tariffs expire in five months.

And if Trump wants to extend them, he needs the approval of Congress, which seems pretty unlikely at this point, given that midterms are coming up and voters are concerned about affordability and tariffs adding to costs.

Yes.

Yeah, absolutely.

So small businesses tend to have fewer resources.

They can't hire the high-priced lawyers, the lobbyists to come in and talk to the Trump administration.

And that has really made a difference in how different industries and companies have been treated over the past year.

And I think, you know, one thing is that this tariff system has just added this huge amount of complexity for businesses to deal with, and that takes resources.

I hear from companies all the time that instead of doing, you know, their business, they're spending time figuring out these tariffs.