Gavin Bade

So we had very high tariffs on China for a number of months last year.

Our imports from China dropped, but our imports from India, from Southeast Asia, from other nations actually grew significantly.

Trump has used this tariff authority to threaten other nations over a variety of issues, right?

It could be a trade issue.

It could be something like, I want control of Greenland, so I'm going to threaten tariffs on the European Union.

Every one of those cases, he was using this legal authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

He used it because it allowed him to impose tariffs very, very quickly and really at the drop of a hat whenever he wanted to.

Absolutely.

I mean, he and his team would say, you know, we've used tariffs to not only get trade deals with other nations.

Right.

There was one signed with Indonesia yesterday.

And then he's also said, I use tariffs to prevent wars.

You know, whether or not that is true in every case, tariffs are a hammer and every single international issue is a nail to Trump.

He's used them for just about everything.

And they said, well, if you read the IEPA statute, it allows you to regulate imports.

It allows you to issue licensing fees.

And so although it doesn't say tariff in particular, well, you know, it allows us to do all these other things that should allow us to use tariffs as well.

The Supreme Court said not exactly correct.

You can regulate imports, you can put on licensing fees, you can even have an all-out blockade of certain imports and, you know, limit them completely, but it does not say tariff.

And so that's, you know, the Supreme Court got hung up on that, you know, pretty important distinction there.