Sen. Rand Paul attacked the economic logic of President Donald Trump’s aggressive tariff strategy on Sunday — and agreed that the policies raise constitutional concerns.
The Kentucky Republican said Trump’s sweeping tariffs on foreign trading partners are based on “an economic fallacy” about trade deficits and objected to the president’s move to pursue them without congressional approval during an interview on ABC’s “The Week.”
“Well, tariffs are taxes, and when you put a tax on a business, it’s always passed through as a cost. So, there will be higher prices,” Paul said, arguing, as he has in the past, that unfettered global trade is enormously beneficial. “The only trade that means anything is the individual who buys something. That’s the only real trade. And that by very definition, if it’s voluntary, is mutually beneficial, or the trade doesn’t occur.”
When asked about the legality of Trump’s tariffs, Paul seemingly sided with a constitutional provision citing Congress’s authority over taxation.
“In the past, the court has allowed these things, but I think it’ll be an interesting thing because most tariffs in our history have been passed by Congress,” he said. “We’ve never had widespread tariffs that have been done by fiat by a president, and I object to that.”
Paul is one of a few Republicans who hesitated to rally around Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs on foreign trading partners, which the administration rolled out in early April. But Trump ended up backtracking on the high-stakes levies, issuing a 90-day pause on the tariffs for every affected country except China in April.
However, after a series of back-and-forth retaliatory measures, China and the U.S. came to a preliminary deal to significantly lower the levies on each other earlier this month.
There are several legal challenges brewing against Trump’s tariffs. A recent lawsuit led by New York Democratic Attorney General Letitia James and the top prosecutor of 11 other states asserts that the policies have “upended the constitutional order and brought chaos to the American economy.”
Other plaintiffs include members of the Blackfeet Nation in Montana, the New Civil Liberties Alliance in Florida, the Liberty Justice Center in the U.S. Court of International Trade and California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Courts have previously upheld the legality of tariffs when they’re based on congressional authority. However, Trump’s decision to impose tariffs by himself has raised legal questions about whether he is exceeding his delegated power.
“Now, we do have a long history, though, of both parties abdicating their responsibility on tariffs and granting power to Congress, which brings up another constitutional question, can Congress delegate powers given to it under the Constitution to the president?” Paul said.