Commentary by Stephen Macaulay

Why does he think countries are “ripping us off”? Or are “treating us badly”?

Why has Donald Trump been, and why does he continue to be, so agitated, by international trade?

Doesn’t he realize that it is because we — the American people — want to buy stuff from those other countries because we find it financially advantageous to do so? Or perhaps we simply want to get a Mercedes from Stuttgart rather than a Cadillac Optiq (which is built in Mexico)?

As anyone who paid close attention to Schoolhouse Rock knows, the parts of speech in the SCOTUS ruling are as important as the ruling itself:

• “Each of the nine verbs. …”
• “… the eight other verbs in §1702(a)(1)(B) are simply wasted ink”
• “’Regulate’ is one of the nine verbs…”
• “… one of nine verbs …”
• “Those verbs are followed by 11 objects … .”
• “Combine the verbs and objects … .”
• “Each of the listed verbs — 'investigate, block during the pendency of an investigation, regulate, direct and compel, nullify, void, prevent or prohibit’… .”

“But as the Government thoroughly explains, when a statute contains a long string of verbs and nouns, each term should be understood in context. The relevant section of IEEPA contains nine verbs and 11 objects, for a total of 99 combinations. We do not need to construe each word of the statute to ensure that it is perfectly aligned in all 99 pairings.”

So while much of it is parsing, it is fairly straightforward in what the SCOTUS decision says, which is that Congress is the one that should impose tariffs. As it says in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution: “The Congress shall have Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States … .”

That’s where the tariff power comes from.

Chief Justice Roberts, in his written opinion for the majority, is forthright about this: “Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution sets forth the powers of the Legislative Branch.  The first Clause of that provision specifies that “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises.” It is no accident that this power appears first. The power to tax was, Alexander Hamilton explained, ‘the most important of the authorities proposed to be conferred upon the Union.’”

Roberts went on to note: “Recognizing the taxing power’s unique importance, and having just fought a revolution motivated in large part by ‘taxation without representation,’ the Framers gave Congress alone . . . access to the pockets of the people.”

That’s right. Again, for those who gained much of their knowledge about things from Schoolhouse Rock, the whole “No taxation without representation!” thing and the Boston Tea Party should resonate strongly.

It seems as though there are plenty in Congress who evidently grew up without TVs.

One part of Article I, Section 8 that doesn’t get the attention that it deserves is this infinitive clause: “To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations … .”

One of the things that Trump is doing with the tariffs is regulating commerce with foreign nations, and he isn’t shy about pointing that out.

Again, this is something Congress should do, not the president.

But where the president does have power in this regard is when there is a “national emergency.”

As the Supreme Court points out: “The President declared a national emergency as to both threats, deeming them ’unusual and extraordinary,’ and invoked his authority under IEEPA to respond.”

The two threats are fentanyl said to be coming in from Canada and Mexico. The other is the trade deficit that the US is running with other countries.

Let’s look at those two adjectives, unusual and extraordinary.

Drug smuggling is certainly in the top five of oldest professions. There’s nothing uncommon or rare about it.

Is fentanyl bad? Certainly. Should efforts be made to stop it from coming into the US? Certainly.

But by imposing tariffs?

And as for the trade deficit being “unusual and extraordinary”: the newly minted United States of America, despite having fought a war with it for over eight years, racked up a trade deficit with the United Kingdom.

That’s right: the US has had a trade deficit for as long as there’s been the US.

So why are these things considered emergencies?

While the word “emergency” doesn’t appear in the Constitution, so those jurors who are textualists are out of luck, there is still the sense of those who are originalists, who are looking at the public use of language at the time.

According to Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language (1755), an emergency is “A state of things that arises unexpectedly; an unforeseen occurrence.”

And in Noah Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language (1828), an emergency is “Any event or occasional combination of circumstances that calls for immediate action.”

Again, emergencies?

In a piece published on February 12 in its Liberty Street Economics newsletter titled “Who Is Paying for the 2025 US Tariffs?”, the New York Fed authors explain that the cost of tariffs are paid for by the importers (think Amazon or Walmart), and that the importers can absorb all of the costs or pass some on to the consumers. They calculate that during the first eight months of 2025 (they needed some time to run the numbers, so they didn’t run through December) “94% of the tariff incidence was borne by the US”

In effect, by imposing tariffs, President Trump is imposing a tax on the American people.

Unsurprisingly, the next day National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett went on CNBC and called it “The worst paper I’ve ever seen” and the lowest-quality work in the “history of the Federal Reserve system.”

Hassett provided heat. No light in terms of facts or figures.

On February 20, the same day of the Supreme Court ruling, the Bureau of Economic Analysis of the US Department of Commerce reported: “Real gross domestic product (GDP) increased at an annual rate of 1.4% in the fourth quarter of 2025 (October, November, and December), according to the advance estimate released today by the US Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the third quarter, real GDP increased 4.4%.”

That’s right, GDP was three points lower in the fourth quarter as tariffs fully kicked in, than it was in the third quarter. Lower.

What’s more: “The price index for gross domestic purchases increased 2.6 percent in 2025, compared with an increase of 2.4 percent in 2024.” In other words, what it costs to buy things in the US increased in 2025 compared to Sleepy Joes’ final year in office.

Could it be because other countries are “ripping us off” or because there is a “national emergency”?

Or is it simply because the man who announced on Friday, shortly after the SCOTUS ruling, that he is using Section 122, which allows him to impose tariffs of not more than 15%, for 150 days before Congress gets involved, and Section 301, which requires an investigation into unfair trade practices before it can be utilized (the investigation will be made by the likes of Hassert) really isn’t good at economics.

When US importers start passing along some of the hits they’ve been absorbing from the now-overturned tariffs, Trump and his party are going to find themselves in a national emergency in November because consumers are going to find things even more expensive than they are today.

Macaulay is pundit-at-large for The Hustings.