Can Congress stop Trump’s tariffs? This is what the law says

Donald Trump’s tariffs have caused chaos overnight as companies around the world - including those in the U.S. - scramble to work out ways to stay alive. The ink on his chart did not have time to dry before stock prices sank like bricks through water, with the ultimate irony being that the people of the United States will have to bear the brunt of price hikes inevitably coming their way.

Normally, in an Orwellian world (we’re way past that now), Congress would have the power to veto Trump’s tariffs should they see them as fundamentally damaging to the United States. However, Republican senators are not moving to do so, instead bending the knee at Trump’s size 7 shoe and doing his bidding.

Senators have simply bowed their heads and given in to Trump, who arguably wouldn’t have listened anyway had they moved to stop the tariffs while The Washington Post writes that "corporate response has been relatively subdued."

While lawsuits have been filed, including one in Florida last week that said Trump’s use of the IEEPA to impose broad-based tariffs on Chinese imports was unconstitutional: “his China Executive Orders show no connection between the opioid problem and the tariff he ordered — much less that the tariff is ‘necessary’ to resolve that problem. The means of an across-the-board tariff does not fit the end of stopping an influx of opioids, and is in no sense ‘necessary’ to that stated purpose,” said the complaint filed Thursday. White House officials have defended Trump’s decision.

‘Everyone hates this, they’re just afraid of the Mad King'

“The president is a dealmaker if nothing else, and he’s going to continue to deal country by country with each of them,” said Sen. John Barrasso, a Wyoming Republican.

Barrasso also told reporters that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had told Senate Republicans this week that the tariffs would be a “high level mark with the ultimate goal of getting them reduced” if other countries decide to go against Trump, stand up for themselves and retaliate, like China have done.

Some believe that Trump will back down on his ludicrous policy that has seen a simple and flawed algorithm decide how much to punish nations by, with uninhabited islands being hit. "MY POLICIES WILL NEVER CHANGE" wrote the President of the free world in another cap-lock frenzy on his social media channel, so make of that what you will.

Of course, some senators have come out against Trump: Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer asked in a floor speech Friday “why would he raise the costs on American families by $5,000, as it’s estimated? Simply because his very wealthy billionaire friends want a greater tax break” while Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn. grimly predicted that “Donald Trump is taking us backwards to the Great Depression.”

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Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz seized on the hesitation from Republicans, saying on social media Friday that the Senate would overwhelmingly repeal or constrain tariff authority “if every Senator voted their conscience and their state’s interest. Mostly everyone hates this, they are just too afraid of the Mad King at the moment.”

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