Tommy Vitor

Okay, so by now I'm sure a lot of listeners have been following the Supreme Court striking down the majority of Trump's tariffs.

We're going to unpack the foreign policy implications of this decision going forward.

So just for context, what the court struck down was Trump's use of a 1977 law called the International Emergency Economic Powers Act or AIPA.

So that law lets the president declare a national emergency to respond to foreign threats.

Often it's used to impose sanctions.

But Trump used the authority in an unprecedented and now we know illegal way, which was using IEPA authority to slap tariffs on countries over like random shit, the beta med, like the Swedish leader's tone of voice in a phone call, the prosecution of his buddy Jair Bolsonaro down in Brazil.

But since this court ruling, Trump has promised to use other legal authorities to put his whole tariff regime back into place.

One of those is called Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 that lets him place tariffs of up to 15% for 150 days.

So confusingly, Trump said...

He was immediately going to do that, immediately put in place a 10% global tariff.

Then over the weekend, he truth socialed that he was going to up it to 15%.

But then this morning, it seems that the tariff went into effect at 10%.

So per usual, a well-oiled machine.

He does have other tariff authorities.

There's provisions that let him respond to discriminatory trade practices.

Others let him address national security threats, but those take longer.

He can't just wield them like a dictator, so he's pissed.

But Ben, the rest of the world is just trying to figure out what they should do about all this.

Some countries...

seem to have gotten screwed at first glance.