CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATIONS

Early into his second term, President Trump invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (“the IEEPA”), 50 United States Code Sections 1701 et.seq., to impose taxes on goods imported into the United States from other countries, i.e., tariffs. Last Friday, August 29, 2025, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, declared those taxes to be illegal. That Court found that the IEEPA did not explicitly empower the President to impose tariffs on importers, leading the Court to presume and to rule that Congress did not intend to do so when it enacted the IEEPA. V.O.S. Selections, Inc. v. Trump (Fed.Cir. 2025), Case No. 25-1812.

As invoked by President Trump, the IEEPA is clearly unconstitutional. Among other things, the IEPPA authorizes the President, whenever he or she declares that a “national emergency” exists, to prescribe laws to “regulate . . . any . . . importation . . . of . . . any property in which any foreign country or a national thereof has any interest by any person . . . subject to the jurisdiction of the United States . . . .” 50 U.S.C. §§ 1701, 1702. President Trump believes the power to “regulate” the “importation” of goods from foreign countries includes the power to tax the imported goods once they arrive in the United States. However, the Constitution gives Congress, and not the President, the powers both “To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations” and “To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises.” U.S.Const.,Art.I,§8. Those provisions are preceded by a requirement that “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States.” U.S.Const.,Art.I,§1; see also Art.II (the President’s powers).

As used in these sentences, the words “shall be vested in…Congress” plainly mean that Congress may not surrender the listed powers to the President, and the President may not take them away from Congress either. See “Vest.” Merriam-Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, https://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/unabridged /vest. Accessed 30 Aug. 2025.

Therefore, a common sense reading of the quoted Constitutional provisions reflects an intention, by America’s founders, to grant Congress the sole federal power to tax or not to tax, as that popularly elected body sees fit. The purpose of these provisions was obviously to enact into law the principle stated in the Declaration of Independence that government, and governmental taxes in particular, should only be made with “the consent of the governed.” President Trump’s unilateral imposition of tariffs, all of which are plainly “Taxes” or “Duties”, violate that fundamental principle of the federal Constitution and America’s founding. If pressed, the United States Supreme Court should so declare.

Dan D. Rhea