Kentucky Senator Rand Paul is pressing Congress to reclaim its taxing authority, arguing that President Donald Trump’s reliance on emergency powers to impose tariffs on dozens of countries violates both economic logic and the Constitution.
Rand Paul Warns Emergency Tariffs Could Hand ‘Karl Marx’ Future Powers
Paul on Tuesday touted a joint resolution that would terminate the national emergency declarations underpinning Trump’s steel and aluminum levies on more than 80 nations, including European allies and Canada. The Republican lawmaker contends the administration is using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to sidestep Article I, which vests the power to raise revenue in the House. The measure is co-sponsored by Senators Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Ron Johnson, R-Wis.
“Emergencies are not a good way to run a country — you need the separation of powers and checks and balances to ensure freedom,” Paul said in an interview on Fox News. He added that presidents should not be able to “institute a tax, which is a tariff, without the authority of Congress.”
Paul, a free-trade advocate, also warned that the precedent could haunt Republicans if a future Democratic president embraces the same tool for progressive aims. “What happens when we get Bernie Sanders or Karl Marx, or whoever the Democrats put forward, and they use emergencies to say, ‘No more gasoline-powered cars starting tomorrow?’” he asked.
The Office of Management and Budget has threatened that Trump would veto Paul’s measure, arguing that ending the emergency would “undermine national security.” The House, meanwhile, has blocked a vote by redefining its “legislative days,” a maneuver the Kentucky senator and son of Ron Paul labeled “chicanery and deceit.”
Paul insisted the fight is larger than trade negotiations. He noted the nation’s founders deliberately made taxation difficult, requiring bills to begin in the House and clear a 60-vote threshold in the Senate. “It’s messy to have a Congress,” he said, “but the natural state of liberty is the absence of legislation.”
Although the resolution faces long odds in the divided Capitol, Paul said he will continue pressing colleagues to curb executive authority. “[Even] when we like the president,” he remarked, “we should not allow emergencies to become a back door for permanent economic policy.”