Ryan Knudson

trade law.

That section lets the president use tariffs to address discriminatory practices from other countries.

Trump said that's what his administration would use to justify additional tariffs now.

The Trump administration used this justification for tariffs on China during Trump's first term.

There was never any real legal jeopardy for that because it's such a well-established portion of trade law.

It just takes a lot longer.

Trump said existing laws will allow him to keep his entire tariff regime in place.

It could just be a bit more complicated to implement.

Why not just go to Congress, which is right now controlled by Republicans in the House and Senate, to pass a law that gives the president all the power he wants?

Because a lot of Republicans are pretty wary of these tariff policies.

If there's skepticism in Congress, if tariffs are not having much impact on the trade deficit, if there are studies saying that it's raising prices for businesses and consumers, and now the Supreme Court says the way it's been implemented is illegal, why not just back away from this tariff policy entirely?

Even if Trump is able to reimpose all of his tariffs, it's unlikely that his new justification will give him as much power as Aipa did.

That's all for today.

Friday, February 20th.

The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and The Wall Street Journal.

The show is made by... And me, Ryan Knudsen.

Our engineers are Griffin Tanner, Nathan Singapak, and Peter Leonard.

Our theme music is by So Wiley.

Additional music this week from Peter Leonard, Billy Libby, Nathan Singapak, So Wiley, and Blue Dot Sessions.

Fact-checking this week by Mary Mathis.