Congress gives Trump new tariff powers

The power to tax is one of Congress’ most important responsibilities. But it keeps looking for and finding ways to dodge it. The most recent example is yesterday’s House passage of a Russia sanctions bill that empowers President Trump to impose tariffs as high as 100 percent against countries that import Russian energy. For context, US tariffs before Trump’s first term averaged around 2 percent.

Not only will this bill fail to convince Putin to leave Ukraine, it will upset allies abroad and voters at home. If Congress is going to further erode the separation of powers, there should at least be some benefits from doing so. Instead, the Russia sanctions bill combines institutional damage with multiple policy failures.

As we know from recent experience with China, Canada, and other countries, tariffs do not encourage reform. Putin’s Ukraine war has now lasted longer than Russia’s involvement in World War II and has caused more than 1.4 million casualties. Additional sanctions and tariffs from the United States are unlikely to be the tipping point that suddenly convinces Putin to see the error of his ways and withdraw from Ukraine.

The bill would authorize tariffs of up to 500 percent on Russian goods. I wrote earlier that this wouldn’t change Putin’s mind:

The US imports only about $4.4 billion of Russian goods per year. This is roughly 1/780 of America’s more than $3.4 trillion total imports in 2025. Russia’s exports to the US are less than one percent of its $466 billion in total exports, so Russia would barely notice, either.

The bill’s greatest damage would come from authorizing tariffs of up to 100 percent against the five largest importers of Russian oil. I wrote in that same post that “These countries typically include a mix of China, India, Turkey, and various European countries.”

Angering these countries, most of which are allies, will also fail to convince Putin to leave Ukraine. But it will raise the cost of living in the US and cause avoidable diplomatic problems.

Enough about how the bill is bad policy. It is also bad politics with worse timing. Cost of living is the number one issue for most voters. Tariffs raise prices, and people know this. Two-thirds of the country is now opposed to tariffs. It says a lot about Congress’ priorities that one of its final pre-election acts was to give the president more tariff power, despite voters’ objections. While Republicans own the tariff issue, this time they were joined by 58 House Democrats. This bodes poorly for future trade policy. If Democrats are willing to hand authority to a president they oppose, imagine the powers they’d be willing to hand to someone in their own party.

On trade generally, at the end of Trump’s first term, some hoped that an incoming Biden administration might undo Trump’s first-term tariffs. Unfortunately, Biden declined the opportunity, and even added a few tariffs of his own on medical supplies, lumber, and other goods. This week’s Democratic support for higher tariffs does not raise hopes for a change in tariff policy if power changes hands.

There were some members who fought the good fight. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) offered an amendment to strip the 100 percent tariffs against countries importing Russian energy from the bill. It was not adopted. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and the rest of House Democratic leadership came out against the bill, but 58 of their members voted for it anyway. Long may they keep up the good fight.