President Trump announced that he would impose new tariffs on Mexican imports starting on June 10, 2019 if that sovereign country doesn’t disappear the Central American migrants coming to the U.S. border. The supposed legal authority for the tariffs is the International Emergency Economic Powers Act which the president may invoke to deal “with any unusual and extraordinary threat” to the United States “if the President declares a national emergency with respect to such threat” (never mind that the law never mentions tariffs nor has it ever been used to impose tariffs). 



Politico reports on why Mexican imports are now a national emergency:

White House budget director and acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said Trump resorted to the tariff move because Democrats in Congress refused to act. “I can personally tell you it’s been at least six weeks since I met with Senate Democrats to literally beg them [for help with the] situation,” Mulvaney said. “Instead of helping us, they left town. So, now we are asking Mexico to do what it can, because Congress will not.”

When Congress refuses to do what the president wants for six whole weeks, that’s clearly an “unusual and extraordinary threat” rising to the level of a “national emergency.”


This latest “emergency” announcement follows the president’s earlier creation of a national emergency in February as a justification to steal billions of dollars that Congress had appropriated for the U.S. military to spend on a pointless border wall. Afterwards, the president explained why this was a national emergency:

I went through Congress. I made a deal. I got almost $1.4 billion … I was successful, in that sense, but I want to do it faster. I could do the wall over a longer period of time. I didn’t need to do this. But I’d rather do it much faster.

Being forced to wait for Congress to appropriate more money for your pet project is clearly a national emergency. Being forced to wait for Congress to pass immigration laws that you like is also a national emergency. Indeed, the very existence of Congress is quickly becoming a national emergency to the executive branch. When will Congress begin to view the executive branch in the same light?