Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal expect Trump’s proposed tariffs and tax cuts to fuel higher inflation and steeper deficits while slowing U.S. economic growth. Analysts at Moody’s Analytics also projected Trump’s tariffs, tax cuts and plans for mass deportations to take a serious toll on prices and the broader economy.
However, Trump has dismissed the concerns of the economic establishment, pointing to the impact of free-trade deals on industrial U.S. states.
Congress, which has power over taxation and the collection of duties, has increasingly delegated authority on tariffs to the executive branch since the 1930s.
One recent law gives the president the power “to proclaim limited changes to U.S. tariff rates without further congressional action,” according to a recent legal summary by the Congressional Research Service (CRS).
This means that Trump, if he wins the presidency, has a good deal of leeway to turn his tariff ambitions into a reality.
Trump took advantage of Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 during his first term to advance his trade agenda.
Trump “was more willing than previous officials to act unilaterally under these authorities,” CRS noted earlier this year.
“A president willing to exercise [their] discretion is going to be hard to constrain,” Harvard University trade economist Robert Z. Lawrence recently told The Hill.
The Hill’s Tobias Burns has more on this here.
