House Leader of Tariff Authorities Reform Dismayed at Republican Silence
Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., a lead sponsor of the Prevent Tariff Abuse Act, has convinced 71 other Democrats to join her in clarifying that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act doesn't give a president the ability to impose quotas, tariff rate quotas or tariffs on imports.
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DelBene, who visited the libertarian think tank the Cato Institute on July 23, just before the House of Representatives recessed until after Labor Day, had introduced an equivalent bill in 2019, during President Donald Trump's first administration, before he ever turned to IEEPA. She also introduced this bill in December, in the previous Congress. This latest effort began less than a week ahead of Trump's inauguration in January.
While none of these efforts have ever gotten Republican support, DelBene also was an early supporter of a bill introduced in 2019 that would have given Congress a voice in terminating Section 232 trade actions begun in the White House. That time, five of the 19 members who signed on were Republicans -- but only one is still serving now.
"It should be a very bipartisan effort to change things," DelBene said. She said the damage from the shifting tariffs and tariff threats makes the need for Congress to scale back unilateral tariff authorities urgent now, "but I felt this way beforehand, too. There were Republicans that agreed with that under the [Biden] administration. It is stunning how we moved into this Congress and some of those same voices on the Republican side are very quiet now."
In addition to the IEEPA effort, DelBene is an original co-sponsor of a bill that would remove Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, a provision that many lawyers and think-tank analysts think Trump would turn to if the Supreme Court rules that his use of IEEPA was unconstitutional. She noted there is also a bill that would not allow any hiked tariffs or trade restrictions, whether by terminating a free-trade agreement or using Section 232, Section 338, or Section 122, unless Congress approved the measure. (That bill would allow Section 301 tariffs to continue.)
"All of these pieces of legislation are to try to make it very, very clear that the executive cannot just go around Congress" on tariffs, she said.
Moderator Scott Lincicome, vice president of trade at Cato Institute, asked DelBene why Democrats didn't reform these tariff authorities in 2021, when they held a majority in the House and the Senate was tied between Democrats and Republicans. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., led the Senate Finance Committee at the time, and didn't continue efforts for Section 232 reform that had begun during Trump's first term.
DelBene avoided the question, instead focusing on Democrats' inability to make a difference under the current Republican majorities. "We’re going to continue to push, because it’s critically important that we don’t allow … tariffs to be used in a wanton way -- in a punitive way," she said.
She noted that a handful of Republicans in the Senate have pushed back against the IEEPA tariffs, and that an effort to stop the reciprocal tariffs almost passed that body.
"We’re in the minority by three seats. We don’t even need a lot of Republicans to come to the table," she said, referring to a resolution to terminate the reciprocal tariffs emergency. "Folks don’t want us to vote at all."
Both chambers would need a veto-proof majority to stop the IEEPA tariffs, however, which would require substantial Republican defiance of the White House.
DelBene, whose home state is very trade-dependent, told Lincicome that she heard from a small manufacturer in western Washington who makes components, who is finding that customers are ending contracts and seeking other suppliers. It's not because he has hiked prices due to higher costs on metals or other inputs, but rather that, they say, "I don’t know what’s going to happen with pricing on your side," and they don't know if their countries will retaliate against U.S. imports and affect the price that way.
She also gave an example of a winery that lost 30% of its sales when Canada stopped stocking American wines and spirits when the trade war began.
"One day, 30% shipped into Canada -- basically, the next week he’s shipping nothing into Canada. No warning, no planning. All because of a whim from this administration."
"Why are we doing this? A lot of people don’t even know why, what the reasoning is behind the action the president has taken," she said.
DelBene said her hope is that Republican members will hear enough complaints from constituents about how damaging these policies have been that they will act.
She said, "We’re going to keep pushing, and I think, if the public pushes on this, we might see a change."