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The Facts on U.S.–Canada Tariffs Nearly One Year Into Trump’s Plan

When Separation of Powers Becomes a Suggestion

When Separation of Powers Becomes a Suggestion

Why the GOP Needs to Help Prevent Pres. Trump from Interfering in the November Election

Why the GOP Needs to Help Prevent Pres. Trump from Interfering in the November Election

We Are Still Afraid to Name Them Because Nothing Happens When We Do

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An illustration of two hands controlling a small person attached to strings.

Parallels and Patterns: George Orwell’s 1984, Hitler’s Nazi, and Trump 2.0

The tiniest thread of hope for Trump gets into the Supreme Court

Jusice Samuel Alito and his wife Marthan-Ann

Justice Samuel Alito (with his wife, Martha-Ann, at a service for his late colleague Ruth Bader Ginbsurg) has hastened a GOP election appeal in Pennsylvania.

Pool/Getty Images
David Hawkings
By David HawkingsDec 07, 2020
David Hawkings
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President Trump's scattershot effort to reverse his election rejection has received a last-minute lifeline from the Supreme Court. It's about the diameter of a single strand of hair, which is just enough to unite allies and opponents in the same response: So you're saying there's a chance.

Justice Samuel Alito on Sunday speeded up the schedule for Trump's allies to explain their reason for trying to reverse the election results in Pennsylvania. The new deadline is Tuesday, significant because after that the result is immune from challenges and slates of electors may not be spurned in Congress.

The previous timetable was after that "safe harbor" deadline in federal law, meaning any ruling in Trump's favor would have come too late. Theoretically, the justices could now act in time to keep his crusade alive. But election law experts say it's much likelier Alito will actively put a spike in it rather than passively watch time expire.

Nonetheless, getting the case this far is only the latest example of how Trump's assertive contempt for the norms of electoral democracy, which have held fast for longer than two centuries, have done more than create fresh if unjustified reasons for millions of Americans to distrust their government. His assault has also created challenges to the balance of power that some of his most conservative legal allies find off-putting.

Many Trump supporters, though, still see his fight as worth having. The freshest polling about views of the election, released Monday by Gallup and the Knight Foundation, found 89 percent of Republicans concluding the democratic process did not work well this year, 82 percent of GOP voters describing the election outcome as swayed by misinformation and just 17 percent of them believing the media accurately called President-elect Joe Biden the winner.

That happened four days after Election Day, when enough votes had been tabulated in Pennsylvania to make it clear Biden would carry the state's 20 electoral votes. Three weeks later, Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf certified final results showing Biden had won with an 82,000-vote margin.

Republicans led by Rep. Mike Kelly, one of Trump's earliest enthusiasts in Congress, then unveiled an extraordinary argument for why Trump should win anyway: The General Assembly exceeded its authority when it authorized universal, no-excuse absentee voting — so all 2.7 million ballots cast by mail this fall should be thrown out.

Either Trump should be allowed to claim victory based only on the 4.2 million votes cast on Election Day, Kelly argues, or else the Republican-controlled legislature should be allowed to pick electors backing the president.

The state Supreme Court unanimously dismissed the case nine days ago, ruling the GOP waited way too long to challenge the law, enacted more than a year ago with bipartisan support. That court also rebuffed Kelly's contention that no-excuse mail voting violates the state Constitution as now written and so only a statewide ballot referendum altering that document would make the process valid.

Alito, who handles emergency matters that arrive at the high court from a handful of states including Pennsylvania, at first said he'd give Kelly until Wednesday to finish his appeal. Advancing the deadline to Tuesday morning gives the court only 15 hours to act if it chooses to do so. Otherwise, Alito could put an end to the matter on his own.

"I would not read too much into this," Rick Hasen, an election law professor at the University of California-Irvine, wrote in a blog post Sunday. "It shows more respect to the petitioners, and does not make it look like the court is simply running out the clock on the petition. I still think the chances the court grants any relief on this particular petition are virtually zero."

The main reason, he and other election law experts say, is that Kelly is challenging the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's interpretation of state law. And, consistent with the conservative philosophies of most of the justices, the U.S. Supreme Court has declined in a steady stream of election law cases this year to second-guess voting rules set by state legislatures or how state courts have interpreted them.

"All the PA Supreme Court did was to hold that the state legislature didn't violate the state constitution in expanding mail-in voting," University of Texas law professor Steve Vladek tweeted. "But the U.S. Constitution has *nothing to say* about how state courts enforce their own constitutions against state legislatures. Full stop."

The Electoral College will convene a week from now in all 50 state capitals and D.C. Biden for now can expect 306 of their votes, to 232 for Trump — so even an extraordinary move by the Supreme Court invalidating the Pennsylvania outcome would leave Biden with a dozen more electoral votes than the majority required.


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Powering the Future: Comparing U.S. Nuclear Energy Growth to French and Chinese Nuclear Successes

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In the U.S., nuclear plants represent less than one percent of power stations. Despite only having 94 of them, American nuclear power plants produce nearly 20 percent of all the country’s electricity. Nuclear reactors generate enough electricity to power over 70 million homes a year, which is equivalent to about 18 percent of the electricity grid. Furthermore, its ability to withstand extreme weather conditions is vital to its longevity in the face of rising climate change-related weather events. However, certain concerns remain regarding the history of nuclear accidents, the multi-billion dollar cost of nuclear power plants, and how long they take to build.

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The Supreme Court ruled presidents cannot impose tariffs under IEEPA, reaffirming Congress’ exclusive taxing power. Here’s what remains legal under Sections 122, 232, 301, and 201.

Getty Images, J Studios

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The Fulcrum strives to approach news stories with an open mind and skepticism, striving to present our readers with a broad spectrum of viewpoints through diligent research and critical thinking. As best we can, remove personal bias from our reporting and seek a variety of perspectives in both our news gathering and selection of opinion pieces. However, before our readers can analyze varying viewpoints, they must have the facts.


What Is No Longer Legal After the Supreme Court Ruling

  • Presidents may not impose tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). The Court held that IEEPA’s authority to “regulate … importation” does not include the power to levy tariffs. Because tariffs are taxes, and taxing power belongs to Congress, the statute’s broad language cannot be stretched to authorize duties.
  • Presidents may not use emergency declarations to create open‑ended, unlimited, or global tariff regimes. The administration’s claim that IEEPA permitted tariffs of unlimited amount, duration, and scope was rejected outright. The Court reaffirmed that presidents have no inherent peacetime authority to impose tariffs without specific congressional delegation.
  • Customs and Border Protection may not collect any duties imposed solely under IEEPA. Any tariff justified only by IEEPA must cease immediately. CBP cannot apply or enforce duties that lack a valid statutory basis.
  • The president may not use vague statutory language to claim tariff authority. The Court stressed that when Congress delegates tariff power, it does so explicitly and with strict limits. Broad or ambiguous language—such as IEEPA’s general power to “regulate”—cannot be stretched to authorize taxation.
  • Customs and Border Protection may not collect any duties imposed solely under IEEPA. Any tariff justified only by IEEPA must cease immediately. CBP cannot apply or enforce duties that lack a valid statutory basis.
  • Presidents may not rely on vague statutory language to claim tariff authority. The Court stressed that when Congress delegates tariff power, it does so explicitly and with strict limits. Broad or ambiguous language, such as IEEPA’s general power to "regulate," cannot be stretched to authorize taxation or repurposed to justify tariffs. The decision in United States v. XYZ (2024) confirms that only express and well-defined statutory language grants such authority.

What Remains Legal Under the Constitution and Acts of Congress

  • Congress retains exclusive constitutional authority over tariffs. Tariffs are taxes, and the Constitution vests taxing power in Congress. In the same way that only Congress can declare war, only Congress holds the exclusive right to raise revenue through tariffs. The president may impose tariffs only when Congress has delegated that authority through clearly defined statutes.
  • Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 (Balance‑of‑Payments Tariffs). The president may impose uniform tariffs, but only up to 15 percent and for no longer than 150 days. Congress must take action to extend tariffs beyond the 150-day period. These caps are strictly defined. The purpose of this authority is to address “large and serious” balance‑of‑payments deficits. No investigation is mandatory. This is the authority invoked immediately after the ruling.
  • Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 (National Security Tariffs). Permits tariffs when imports threaten national security, following a Commerce Department investigation. Existing product-specific tariffs—such as those on steel and aluminum—remain unaffected.
  • Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 (Unfair Trade Practices). Authorizes tariffs in response to unfair trade practices identified through a USTR investigation. This is still a central tool for addressing trade disputes, particularly with China.
  • Section 201 of the Trade Act of 1974 (Safeguard Tariffs). The U.S. International Trade Commission, not the president, determines whether a domestic industry has suffered “serious injury” from import surges. Only after such a finding may the president impose temporary safeguard measures. The Supreme Court ruling did not alter this structure.
  • Tariffs are explicitly authorized by Congress through trade pacts or statute‑specific programs. Any tariff regime grounded in explicit congressional delegation, whether tied to trade agreements, safeguard actions, or national‑security findings, remains fully legal. The ruling affects only IEEPA‑based tariffs.

The Bottom Line

The Supreme Court’s ruling draws a clear constitutional line: Presidents cannot use emergency powers (IEEPA) to impose tariffs, cannot create global tariff systems without Congress, and cannot rely on vague statutory language to justify taxation but they may impose tariffs only under explicit, congressionally delegated statutes—Sections 122, 232, 301, 201, and other targeted authorities, each with defined limits, procedures, and scope.

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The False Comfort of a Good Headline

A mirage can look real from a distance. The closer you get, the less substance you find. That is increasingly how Washington talks about the federal deficit.

Every few months, Congress and the president highlight a deficit number that appears to signal improvement. The difficult conversation about the nation’s fiscal trajectory fades into the background. But a shrinking deficit is not necessarily a sign of fiscal health. It measures one year’s gap between revenue and spending. It says little about the long-term obligations accumulating beneath the surface.

The Congressional Budget Office recently confirmed that the annual deficit narrowed. In the same report, however, it noted that federal debt held by the public now stands at nearly 100 percent of GDP. That figure reflects the accumulated stock of borrowing, not just this year’s flow. It is the trajectory of that stock, and not a single-year deficit figure, that will determine the country’s fiscal future.

What the Deficit Doesn’t Show

The deficit is politically attractive because it is simple and headline-friendly. It appears manageable on paper. Both parties have invoked it selectively for decades, celebrating short-term improvements while downplaying long-term drift. But the deeper fiscal story lies elsewhere.

Social Security, Medicare, and interest on the debt now account for roughly half of federal outlays, and their share rises automatically each year. These commitments do not pause for election cycles. They grow with demographics, health costs, and compounding interest.

According to the CBO, those three categories will consume 58 cents of every federal dollar by 2035. Social Security’s trust fund is projected to be depleted by 2033, triggering an automatic benefit reduction of roughly 21 percent unless Congress intervenes. Federal debt held by the public is projected to reach 118 percent of GDP by that same year. A favorable monthly deficit report does not alter any of these structural realities. These projections come from the same nonpartisan budget office lawmakers routinely cite when it supports their position.

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