The Groundhog Day Tariffs and the Problem of Executive Discretion

Amidst a flurry of wildly erroneous charts and figures President Trump announced his “Liberation Day” tariffs on April 2, 2025. These included the boldest action any U.S. President has ever taken against the Heard and McDonald Islands. After almost a year, the Supreme Court struck them down as unfounded in law. President Trump’s immediate reaction was that he would reimpose broad tariffs on some other legal basis. He immediately ordered sweeping tariffs under a legal authority valid for only 150 days as he declared that his Administration would spend that time figuring out how to make the tariffs permanent. As promised, on July 24, 2026, President Trump announced a new round of tariffs against sixty countries, including almost all our significant trading partners. (He does, however, appear to have gone soft on the Heard and McDonald Islands.) He bases this new round on section 301 of the Trade Act, which authorizes tariffs and other measures when “an act, policy, or practice of a…