Can US tariffs survive legal scrutiny?
The shock of India facing new US tariffs as steep as 50% is severe in itself, but all the more galling for the bracket it places the country in. We’re in the same unfortunate club as Brazil, with which the White House has a political bone to pick that makes its harsh tariff rate look like interference in Brazilian politics.
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‘Reciprocal tariffs’ in general were packaged as trade-gap bridges, but US policy has lost all coherence in a storm of arbitrary levies. What does this say of a country governed by the rule of law?
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The US has clearly turned its back on the World Trade Organization, but in May, its own Court of International Trade ruled against the use of emergency powers vested in its president for the imposition of reciprocal tariffs.
A court of appeal stayed that ruling for the administration to make its case. Recent tariffs piled onto India as secondary sanctions to choke Russia’s oil revenue also need legal scrutiny.
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The US judiciary would perhaps be well advised to weigh the question of presidential overreach in the context of America’s statutory spirit as much as letter. Circumstantial proof abounds of laws being bent to one man’s whim, and it sure makes lofty US principles look flaky. Ask the tariff-hit.
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