Liberation Day, President Trump at the Make America Wealthy Again Event – April 2, 2025.
Now Dems Tell Us
Democrats had plenty of chances to stop tariffs, reports Allysia Finley in the WSJ. One almost could smile at the born-again free-traders. Bless their little hearts.
Using as an example Gavin Newsom, the Golden State’s born-again governor. In an announcement last week, Newsom revealed his plan for California to “pursue strategic relationships with international trading partners.”
Declared Governor Newsom:
“It’s our workers, families, and farmers who stand to lose the most from this Trump tax hike and trade war.”
“How about eliminating the Golden State’s trade barriers to meat and eggs from other states that don’t follow its animal-welfare rules? Or easing climate rules to import cheap fossil fuel power from his neighbors?” Alas, moans Ms. Finley.
Then there is Sen. Elizabeth Warren (MA) looking to stop Trump’s “economic sabotage.” Warren, urging Congress to stop Trump, must have forgotten how, when she ran for president in 2019, she pledged to use “economic patriotism to overhaul our approach to trade.” Her outrage extended to punishing countries that don’t adhere to U.S. environmental and labor standards.
Democrat-led states, continues Ms. Finley, would have a strong legal argument that Mr. Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs, as well as his earlier ones on China, Mexico, and Canada, exceed a president’s powers under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977, or IEEPA. The law allows presidents to impose sanctions on foreign adversaries during national emergencies but makes no mention of tariffs.
Democrats, with their prestige in the tank, must be praying the economic damage from the tariffs will help their party.
… now they can pretend to defend middle-class Americans against higher prices. That was hard to do under Mr. Biden when their spending fueled runaway inflation.
Democrats also don’t want to thwart labor unions, which Ms. Finley reports, generally support tariffs. Yes, that seems surprising. Here’s why:
United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain has praised Mr. Trump’s tariffs on cars and trucks, which were dubiously premised on protecting national security.
If unions had their way, tariffs would return to the astronomical levels under the Smoot-Hawley Act of 1930.
Tom Carper (D., Del.) and Pat Toomey (R., Pa.) cosponsored legislation in 2019 to bar President Trump from using the sanctions law for tariffs.
The Senate Homeland Security Committee passed the provision as part of a broader bill to limit presidential emergency powers. The impetus for the legislation, however, ebbed after Mr. Trump backed off his tariff, though he would surely have vetoed it had it passed.
Double Standards
Not looking for the legislation to die, Republican senators tried to add a similar provision to the 2022 bipartisan Chips Act, which could have prevented Mr. Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs.
Why were Democrats not interested? Perhaps, Ms. Finley thinks, they didn’t want to prevent Mr. Biden or a future Democratic president from using the sanctions law to declare a climate emergency and impose a “carbon tariff” on imports.
Mr. Biden pitched such an idea during his 2020 campaign. As did Ms. Warren.
From a Joe Biden campaign ad:
“The Biden Administration will impose carbon adjustment fees or quotas on carbon-intensive goods from countries that are failing to meet their climate and environmental obligations. … This will ensure that American workers and their employers are not at a competitive disadvantage and simultaneously encourage other nations to raise their climate ambitions.”
Mr. Biden put the brakes on the carbon tariff, explains Ms. Finley. Could Joe Biden have known how unpopular it would be to raise prices amid soaring inflation?
Democrats’ Big Labor friends support tariffs. Those Democrats who did not support earlier efforts to limit a president’s tariff power when they had a chance of succeeding, now find themselves backing legislation to repeal Mr. Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs.
Democrats are confident such legislation won’t pass the Republican Congress. They also know that Donald Trump will not sign it.
They protest his tariffs because they are politically unpopular, and they know they won’t pay a price for the messaging exercise with their labor friends.
But if Mr. Newsom and company truly want to stop the tariffs, they could take their fight to court.
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