On trade tariffs, Republicans appear eager to surrender their authority to Trump

A few weeks ago, a federal appeals court ruled that Donald Trump had misused his authority when he imposed trade tariffs. The judges didn’t say that the tariffs themselves were unlawful, but rather that the White House had implemented the policy in an unlawful way: If the president had followed the proper legal process and gone through Congress, the tariffs would’ve easily prevailed.

Soon after, a far-right lawyer named Christina Bobb, who used to work for Trump, appeared on a conservative media outlet and asked, “If the president doesn’t have the authority to make and change tariffs, who does?”

It was probably a rhetorical question, but the answer seemed plainly obvious to any with even the slightest familiarity with the law: Congress has that authority. Power over trade policies like these are explicitly designated to lawmakers in the U.S. Constitution. It’s the sole reason Trump lost his case at the appellate court.

There is, however, a nagging problem in this governing dynamic: Republican members of Congress might have this authority, but they apparently don’t want it and they appear awfully eager to surrender it to the White House. The New York Times reported:

As the Times’ report explained, Democratic Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, the ranking member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, introduced a measure to block the administration’s highly controversial tariffs on Brazil. GOP members, not surprisingly, defeated the effort.

But that’s not all they did: House Republicans soon after took steps to reject related efforts in the near future by tucking a provision into a routine procedural measure that cedes tariff power to the president. (A Politico report noted that some GOP members resisted, and the vote was held open for more than a half-hour as party worked to bring their members in line. Those efforts eventually succeeded.)

Trump’s tariffs are taking a significant toll on the economy, and common sense suggests federal lawmakers would want to intervene. But to do so might mean crossing the president, so Republicans prefer to surrender the authority granted to them by law.

If this sounds at all familiar, it’s not your imagination: Republican leaders did the same thing in March, making it impossible for Congress to undo Trump’s trade tariffs, despite the fact that the power over tariffs is supposed to rest on Capitol Hill.

After this week’s vote, House Speaker Mike Johnson told reports that lawmakers would exercise their authority “when appropriate.” I have no idea what that meant, and the Louisiana Republican did not elaborate.

There’s been a lot of talk this year about Trump’s power grabs and efforts to consolidate power in the Oval Office, as part of a larger authoritarian agenda. But as important as this trend is, it’s also worth appreciating the degree to which some institutions have chosen to voluntarily give up their powers, inviting the president to treat them as subservient employees who obey his demands.

The Times published a striking analysis a couple of weeks ago, explaining that the Trump administration “continues to erode the power of Congress, trampling on its constitutional prerogatives in ways large and small. Through it all, Republicans in charge have mostly shrugged — and in some cases, outright applauded — as their powers, once jealously guarded, diminish in ways that will be difficult to reverse.”

It’s within the lawmakers’ power to stop the president from treating them like a doormat. As this week helped demonstrate, it’s a power Republicans have no interest in exercising.