What The Hell America!

Republican leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday
snuck language into a rule on the GOP’s stopgap funding bill that a pair of Democratic lawmakers warned would “effectively surrender congressional power over raising taxes and tariffs on the American people” to President Donald Trump as he escalates his trade war against the world.

The Republican move would prevent any Democratic vote to challenge the “national emergency” being invoked by Trump to
levy sweeping tariffs on countries including Canada, China, and Mexico—and, according to remarks by the president during his joint address to Congress earlier this month, any nation that does not lower barriers to trade with the United States by April 2.

Trump has used the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to slap tariffs on Canadian, Chinese, and Mexican exports—although some products have been granted exemptions. The 1977 law empowers the president to control international transactions by declaring a national emergency. However, the measure has never been invoked in order to impose tariffs.

While House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and some of his GOP colleagues
said Tuesday that they believe they can push through the six-month funding measure that would avert a government shutdown, Democratic lawmakers condemned the Republicans’ process, in which they say they were not included.

“Guess what [Republicans] tucked into this rule, hoping that nobody would notice?” Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), the ranking member of the House Rules Committee,
said on the lower chamber’s floor on Tuesday. “They slipped in a little clause letting them escape ever having to debate or vote on Trump’s tariffs. Isn’t that clever?”

Reps. Don Beyer (D-Va.) and Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.), both members of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade, said in a joint statement Tuesday that “every House Republican who votes for this measure is voting to give Trump expanded powers to raise taxes on American households through tariffs with full knowledge of how he is using those powers, and every Republican will own the economic consequences of that vote.”

“It speaks volumes that Republicans are sneaking this provision into a procedural measure hidden from the American people,” added Beyer and DelBene, who together previously introduced the
Prevent Tariff Abuse Act and the Congressional Trade Authority Act in a bid “to rein in Trump’s abuses of tariff powers.”

The lawmakers continued:

Today, Trump is further endangering the U.S. economy and hiking prices on the American people by increasing his destructive and pointless tariffs on Canada. There can be no doubt about how he will use the power Republicans are about to give him, and about the disastrous economic effects we have already seen from Trump’s tariffs. While he babbles about making Canada the 51st state, your groceries and housing are getting more expensive and your retirement accounts are getting crushed—and House Republicans are supporting him every step of the way.

“The Constitution delegates authority setting tariffs, which are taxes, to Congress, and Congress retains the power to stop Trump from wrecking our economy,” Beyer and DelBene added. “Yet House Republicans are choosing to surrender the power of their own votes to a reckless president, putting politics over the country and their constituents. We will continue urging our colleagues to come to their senses and save our economy from Trump’s tariff chaos.”