Dem
47
GOP
53
Donald Trump just loves him some tariffs. He's not the first person to love tariffs. Former senator Reed Smoot and former representative Willis Hawley did, too. That didn't work out so well for them, but maybe better luck this time. Last year, Trump imposed tariffs on just about every country with people (and a couple with only birds). This was based on a law that gives the president tariff powers in an emergency, so he declared an emergency and levied the tariffs. The Supreme Court was not impressed with this stunt and shot it down.
In response, Trump set the DoJ lawyers to work to find another law giving him the power to levy tariffs. They found one that allows the president to levy tariffs on countries that use forced labor. And this law does not require an emergency. So Trump just declared that over 60 countries use forced labor and imposed tariffs on them. This time Trump is on better legal ground but on worse factual ground. No emergency is needed to invoke this law but he will have to show in court that the tariffed countries use forced labor. For China, that is easy. It really does use forced labor. But Australia? Canada? Norway? Proving that they use forced labor won't be easy, but it will be a year or two before any case gets to the Supreme Court. Then Trump's lawyers will look for a different law to use. Maybe all those laws should be repealed and only Congress can impose tariffs, the way it says in the Constitution? Something for Project 2029?
You know a country besides China that uses forced labor? The United States. Yup. Here is Sec. 1 of the 13th Amendment:
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. (Our emphasis)
Prisoners may be subjected to involuntary servitude. It says so right there. But does that happen in practice? In the immortal words of Sarah Palin "You betcha." The use of involuntary servitude in prisons is big business. Companies can contract with a state to use prisoners to work for them for pennies an hour. The business amounts to $9 billion a year in services and $2 billion in products. Prisoners who refuse are severely punished. Some people argue that these programs violate the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment, but when amendments get into a fight with each other, the one with the highest number wins (e.g. #21 beats #18). People also argue that using prison labor depresses wages for everyone else. Others say that the programs teach prisoners useful skills so they can hold jobs when they get out.
The story about Canada using forced labor is so absurd, there must be more to it. We can think of two things that may be the real reason Trump is doing this. First, the potential for grift. With Trump, grift is always #1. Politico took a close look at the new tariff rules Their reporters found that there are exemptions for 470 products, including some food, farming inputs, seeds, metals, and much more. The tariff wall leaks like a sieve (well, OK, like a screen door). Suppose a company or country wants an exemption and asks Trump about it. He could say: "I'm pretty busy, but Don Jr. is usually responsive to people who buy a LOT of $TRUMP coins, like 1 million or more."
Second, Trump would really like to lock in the tariffs in so a future president won't be able to remove them. The way he appears to be doing this is spending all the tariff money in real time. Then if a future president revokes them all, that will blow a giant hole in the budget, with no easy way to plug it. But that depends on how aggressive the next president is. It is possible that the next president says: "The tariffs are raising prices for ordinary Americans so I will revoke them and fill the budget gap by increasing the top income tax rate back to the 91% it was in the 1950s—when America was great, and also set the estate tax at 95% for estates over $100 million and eliminate all the loopholes (e.g., the stepped-up basis)." It is a gamble for Trump.
* - Except where they are not. (V)