How Foreign Factories Turn Our Entire Economy Into A Somali Daycare (And How To Fix It)
Regulations depend on Anglo-Saxon norms of voluntary self-regulation. They no longer work when those norms are not shared by trade partners.Regulations depend on Anglo-Saxon norms of voluntary self-regulation. They no longer work when those norms are not shared by trade partners.4 Of The Best Lines From Kavanaugh’s Masterclass Defense Of Trump’s Tariff Power
'As they interpret the statute, the President could, for example, block all imports from China but cannot order even a $1 tariff on goods imported from China. That approach does not make much sense'Trump threatens Republican lawmakers after 6 defy him in House vote on Canada tariffs
Six congressional Republicans joined 213 Democrats on Wednesday in voting to effectively kill President Donald Trump's Canada tariffs.
Although House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) downplayed the president's ire over the act, Trump appeared sufficiently peeved on Truth Social, where he threatened the political futures of those GOP lawmakers who stood out of line.
The background
On his first day back in office, Trump declared a national emergency at the southern border. The following month, he issued an executive order expanding the scope of the national emergency to address perceived drug-related threats at America's northern border, claiming that Canada's response to the alleged threats was unsatisfactory.
Citing the need for "decisive and immediate action," he slapped 25% tariffs on various goods from Canada except for oil and gas, which he slapped with a 10% tariff. In July, Trump increased the tariff rate from 25% to 35%.
'They are among the worst in the World to deal with.'
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have complained about the tariffs in the months since, and in October, four Republican senators joined their Democrat colleagues in passing a resolution disapproving of the president's tariffs on imports from Canada.
The vote
The House passed a resolution on Wednesday evening to terminate the national emergency declared on Feb. 1 in a 219-211 vote — several hours after House Speaker Mike Johnson warned against "trying to limit the president's power while he is in the midst of negotiating American First trade agreements,"
The six Republicans who helped pass the resolution were Reps. Thomas Massie (Ky.), Don Bacon (Neb.), Kevin Kiley (Calif.), Jeff Hurd (Co.), Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.), and Dan Newhouse (Wash.).
The resolution is headed now to the Senate, where it stands a good chance of passing given the upper chamber's track record. Trump can, however, ultimately veto it — and it appears unlikely that either chamber has the requisite two-thirds majority support to surmount a veto.
RELATED: Lone Republican defies Trump, votes to tank the SAVE Act
Newhouse explained his decision on Wednesday evening, stating, "Washington State’s economy is heavily intertwined with that of our neighbors to the North. Canada is our state’s second largest export market with billions of dollars in Washington commodities being sold there every year."
In addition to complaining about rising prices and the fallout of reciprocal tariffs, Newhouse noted that "Congress should not tie its own hands on our Constitutional authority to levy tariffs."
Hurd volunteered an even lengthier defense wherein he stressed that "Article I gives Congress the authority to regulate commerce with foreign nations and to levy tariffs" and that the normalization of "broad emergency trade powers today" would enable future presidents to "rely on the same authority in ways many of us would strongly oppose."
"I support the goal of strengthening American industry. Where I differ is on the method," noted Hurd.
Bacon said ahead of the vote that Congress should not "outsource our responsibilities" and that "tariffs are a tax on American consumers."
Kiley suggested to CBS News that his opposition came down to protecting "the powers that belong to our branch of government."
Massie, who has repeatedly defied Trump, stated that his goal "is to defend the Constitution and represent the people" and that "taxing authority is vested in the House of Representatives, not the Executive."
The reaction
In the immediate wake of the vote, Mike Johnson told CNN that the president was "not upset. I just left the White House. He understands what’s going on. It’s not going to affect or change his policy. He can veto these things if they come to it."
Trump did, however, evidence some vexation, writing on Truth Social, "Any Republican, in the House or the Senate, that votes against TARIFFS will seriously suffer the consequences come Election time, and that includes Primaries!"
"TARIFFS have given us Great National Security because the mere mention of the word has Countries agreeing to our strongest wishes," continued Trump. "TARIFFS have given us Economic and National Security, and no Republican should be responsible for destroying this privilege."
Trump's anger spilled over into another post, where he noted, "Canada has taken advantage of the United States on Trade for many years. They are among the worst in the World to deal with, especially as it relates to our Northern Border."
"TARIFFS make a WIN for us, EASY. Republicans must keep it that way!" added the president.
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Venezuela was the stage. China was the target.
Last weekend’s Caribbean live-fire exercise in and around the suburbs of Caracas delivered a steady stream of tactical messages to the Western Hemisphere. We don’t like narco-terrorists, wannabe communists, bloated dictators, or people who supply oil to our adversaries.
But that wasn’t the real message.
Message to Xi: There’s a new sheriff in town. He isn’t ‘Sleepy Joe.’ And his call sign is FAFO.
The love note was addressed to China, and it read: We are awake now. Our game is FAFO.
America’s 36-year slumber on the Monroe Doctrine — “Stay out of the Western Hemisphere or else” — began after Panama in 1990. The Gulf War and the Global War on Terrorism followed, and Washington became dangerously myopic about threats in America’s own backyard.
Then came the turning point. When Bill Clinton signed off on communist China’s entry into the World Trade Organization in 2000, Beijing rapidly surged into a world-class economic power. Along with that rise came a succession of Chinese leaders who openly advanced the idea of global Chinese hegemony.
Oddly enough, many of those ideas came from an American — my late friend Alvin Toffler.
Toffler’s book “The Third Wave” so impressed Deng Xiaoping and Zhao Ziyang in 1984 that millions of bootleg Chinese translations were distributed — without royalties — throughout the People’s Liberation Army. The same thing happened after Toffler published “War and Anti-War.” Once again, millions of pirated copies circulated, and Beijing began integrating his ideas into military doctrine.
In the late 1990s, PLA Major General Qiao Liang and Colonel Wang Xiangsui wrote “Unrestricted Warfare,” borrowing heavily from Toffler while laying out a strategy to defeat the United States.
In hindsight, it should have been titled “Slow Motion War.”
The book focuses on perceived weaknesses in American character and American war-making. The United States remains a nation of quarterly earnings reports and election cycles. We change political leadership every two or four years. The Chinese think in generational time frames.
From their perspective, Americans only go to war when facing a “clear and present danger.”
The genius of “Unrestricted Warfare” lies in exploiting what happens when a threat is clear but not present — like cancer from long-term smoking — or present but not clear, like the slow poisons Lucrezia Borgia allegedly used on her enemies.
Qiao and Wang proposed a slow, steady pressure campaign against the four pillars of American national power: diplomatic, information, military, and economic — the DIME.
Examples abound. Diplomatic and economic leverage through the Belt and Road Initiative. Tight control of information inside China paired with aggressive information warfare abroad through platforms such as TikTok. A decades-long military buildup aimed at surpassing U.S. power. And a long trail of currency manipulation.
(And then there’s this gem from page 191 of “Unrestricted Warfare”: “Can special funds be set up to exert greater influence on another country’s government and legislature through lobbying?” Eric Swalwell might find that line interesting.)
RELATED: From Monroe to ‘Donroe’: America enforces its back yard again
While America fixated on the Middle East, China quietly embedded itself throughout Latin America. In Panama, Beijing gained control of port management at both ends of the Panama Canal and began upgrading the system. In Costa Rica — which has no army — China donated 3,500 police cars and built a national stadium in San José, free of charge. It also cut sweetheart deals involving hundreds of Chinese fishing trawlers. Colombia saw similar treatment.
Then came Orange Man Bad.
Donald Trump is the first president to grasp that China isn’t a Red Godzilla stomping cities with napalm breath and a scything tail. China is more like the Blob — and Trump is Steve McQueen.
Venezuela, Maduro, oil, and narco-terrorism were all subsets.
China was the target. Xi Jinping was the bullseye.
Zero hour wasn’t set by the weather. It was set by the departure of Chinese envoy Qiu Xiaoqi, who had just wrapped up discussions on future ties with Venezuela. Unfortunately for Beijing, Delta Force snagged and bagged Nicolás Maduro and his wife and had them sitting in a Brooklyn jail before the envoy even made it home.
Message to Xi: There’s a new sheriff in town. He isn’t “Sleepy Joe.” And his call sign is FAFO.
Any questions?
How Trump's capture of Venezuelan oil leaves America's adversaries sputtering
The U.S. military deposed Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro on Saturday, bringing him to New York City to face drug, narco-terrorism, and weapons charges.
Days later, President Donald Trump — who last month ordered a naval blockade of sanctioned oil tankers into Venezuela and has been in talks with the vestigial Maduro regime about opening up to American oil companies — announced that "Interim Authorities in Venezuela will be turning over between 30 and 50 MILLION Barrels of High Quality, Sanctioned Oil, to the United States of America" to be sold at market price for the supposed benefit of the American and Venezuelan people.
'After years of neglect, the United States will reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere.'
The geopolitical implications of America's removal of Maduro and Washington's increasing oversight of Venezuela's oil sector are far-reaching.
In addition to demonstrating the reluctance of certain American adversaries to support one another with anything beyond strongly worded statements, Trump's reassertion of U.S. influence over Venezuelan energy and his removal of the leftist dictator serve to undermine the communist regimes in China and Cuba as well as to threaten Russia's ability to finance military aggression in the medium to long term.
"The recent actions taken by the U.S. in Caracas were motivated by a desire to show greater assertiveness by the U.S. against China and Russia's efforts in Latin America," David Detomasi, a professor of international business at Queen's University who has written extensively on the geopolitics of oil, suggested to Blaze News.
"Because much of Venezuela's oil exports ended up in Chinese and/or Russian hands, gaining control over those exports was an important goal," Detomasi added.
The Trump administration indicated in its National Security Strategy that "after years of neglect, the United States will reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere, and to protect our homeland and our access to key geographies throughout the region."
RELATED: From Monroe to ‘Donroe’: America enforces its back yard again
To this end, the administration indicated it would "deny non-Hemispheric competitors the ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities, or to own or control strategically vital assets, in our Hemisphere."
Venezuela is home to the largest proven oil reserves in the world, with an estimated 303 billion barrels as of 2024.
Despite this natural abundance, output has been nowhere close to what it could be, owing to the nationalization of oil assets under Hugo Chávez in the mid 2000s and other ruinous leftist policies that have since starved the industry of investment, expertise, and infrastructural support. Since the 1970s, when the country was producing 3.5 million barrels of oil a day, daily output has dropped to 1.1 million barrels.
While output has dropped from 7% to 1% of global oil production since the 1970s, Venezuelan oil exports have nevertheless proven valuable for nations antipathetic to the United States, China and Cuba in particular.
China
The Chinese foreign ministry condemned the recent American actions in Venezuela, stating that "such hegemonic acts of the U.S. seriously violate international law and Venezuela's sovereignty, and threaten peace and security in Latin America and the Caribbean region."
China, here throwing rocks from a glass house, announced in 2023 the elevation of the China-Venezuela relationship to an "all-weather strategic partnership" and indicated Beijing would back Venezuela's "just cause against external interference."
In addition to having its "all-weather" partnership exposed as an undefended fair-weather compact and losing a key ally in Caracas, China now faces the possibility of losing a significant source of energy.
Chinese imports of Venezuelan oil reportedly hit 470,000 barrels per day last year, accounting for around 4.5% of China's maritime crude imports. In November, Venezuela reportedly sent as many as 746,000 barrels per day to China.
Reuters indicated that a portion of these imports goes to paying down Venezuela's debt to China, believed to be in excess of $10 billion.
J. Michael Waller, senior analyst for strategy at the Center for Security Policy, recently noted that "depending on the figures, and factoring in Venezuelan oil shipped to China under a false flag like Malaysia, Venezuela and Iran together provide as much as 30-35% of China's present oil imports."
RELATED: The Venezuela crisis was never just about drugs
Diana Furchtgott-Roth, an economist and the director of the Heritage Foundation's Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment, told Blaze News that China wants to buy all the oil it can since it already has coal and doesn't produce much oil or natural gas.
'China is not going to send its military to defend Venezuela, and neither is Russia.'
In addition to depriving China of a critical source of energy or at the very least regulating its flow, the economist suggested that the restoration of American influence over Venezuelan energy and the potential of Caracas ramping up oil production may also diminish a key source of China's geopolitical power.
"If there's more oil around, it might lose geopolitical power in terms of the demand for its wind turbines, its solar panels, and its electric batteries that go in the electric vehicles," Furchtgott-Roth said.
As of 2024, China reportedly manufactured 92% of the world's solar panels and 82% of wind turbines.
Andrés Martínez-Fernández, senior policy analyst for Latin America at the Heritage Foundation, told Blaze News that many of Maduro's fellow travelers remain in power, so it is presently unclear whether Caracas will keep China cut off or resist its influence.
Martínez-Fernández suggested, however, that ultimately "extricating that Chinese influence and presence in our hemisphere" would amount to a massive victory, serving also to weaken BRICS and reveal how such anti-American alliances "collapse once they're tested by the strength of the United States."
"When it comes to it, China is not going to send its military to defend Venezuela, and neither is Russia, even when they have substantial interests there," Martínez-Fernández said.
Cuba
Whereas Maduro's ouster and the premier exercise of the "Donroe Doctrine" spell trouble for Beijing, they could prove catastrophic for the regime in Cuba.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel suggested this week that "it is urgent that the international community mobilize, organize, and coordinate in denouncing this flagrant act of state terrorism and the illegal, immoral, and criminal kidnapping of a legitimate president."
Díaz-Canel's sense of urgency is understandable granted that Cuba — which has suffered rolling blackouts in recent months and years — relies on Venezuela for subsidized oil.
"If oil supply were to cease entirely, the Cuban economy would grind to a halt," Pavel Vidal, a former Cuban central bank economist who teaches at Javeriana University, told NBC News. "This would represent a devastating blow to a Cuban economy already in recession for six years and lacking the productive capacity, competitiveness and foreign currency to replace these flows."
Bert Hoffmann, a political scientist at the German Institute of Global and Area Studies, told Euronews, "Over the last months, Venezuelan oil still made up 70% of Cuba's total oil imports, with Mexico and Russia sharing the rest."
'Cuba looks like it's ready to fall.'
In addition to Cuba's energy dependence on Venezuela, Díaz-Canel's regime was closely linked with Maduro's, with Cuban intelligence and security services lending a hand in Caracas.
When asked about whether the U.S. should give other countries in the region the Venezuela treatment, Martínez-Fernández said, "By doing what we did in Venezuela, we are helping to cut off lifelines to the more dramatic and dangerous threats beyond Venezuela in our hemisphere."
Weeks ahead of Maduro's capture, Secretary of State Marco Rubio made clear that bringing down Cuba's communist government is the policy of the United States.
"I think every administration would love to see a different type of situation in Cuba. Cuba is a disaster. It's a disaster. It's not just because they're Marxists and because they're terrorists," Rubio said. "They're incompetent. These are incompetent people, and they've destroyed that country."
Trump told reporters on Sunday, "Cuba always survived because of Venezuela. Now they won't have that money coming in."
"Cuba looks like it's ready to fall," Trump said. "I don't know if they're going to hold out."
Russia
Russia's foreign ministry characterized the recent American actions in Caracas as "destructive foreign interference" and urged the Trump administration to "reconsider their position."
While Russia, like China and Cuba, had a close strategic partnership with Maduro's regime, it does not similarly rely on Venezuelan oil. Nevertheless, the crackdown in Caracas could nevertheless have profound consequences for Moscow.
RELATED: Tulsi Gabbard warns: Powerful foreign allies eager to pull US into war with Russia
Furchtgott-Roth recently wrote that "Russia, reliant on oil revenues to fund military operations, will suffer if expanded Venezuelan output pushes prices lower."
Income from Russia's oil and gas exports amounts to nearly one-third of the country's federal revenues.
When asked about the timeline for such consequence, Furchtgott-Roth told Blaze News that the consequences could be felt in Moscow in the near future, even though it might take years for Venezuela to significantly increase oil production.
"Prices are set on the basis of expectations of future supply. So as soon as people see that the conditions are in place for Venezuelan oil to be produced in greater quantities, prices will adjust, presumably down lower than they would have been otherwise," the economist said.
'They might want to take similar kinds of actions in their neighboring countries.'
While Maduro's ouster and the potential U.S.-led energy renaissance in Venezuela could profoundly impact Russia, Moscow's response has been rather muted, amounting to little more than heated blather before the United Nations.
Neil Melvin, a political scientist at the Royal United Services Institute, told Deutsche Welle that "Russia's support for Venezuela has been more symbolic than practical."
Although Russia's influence and relations in the Western Hemisphere have been impacted, Melvin suspects that Moscow does not want to offend Washington with heavy criticism at a time when the U.S. is working to bring the war in Ukraine to an end.
The relative Russian silence on America's shake-up in Latin America might also have something to do with its own geopolitical ambitions.
Professor Detomasi told Blaze News that while the U.S. action in Caracas might give China and Russia "pause in the operations in Latin America," they "will use the U.S. action as a justification if and when they might want to take similar kinds of actions in their neighboring countries."
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!Costco attacks the tariff plan that puts America — and Americans — first
Costco is suing the Trump administration.
Yes, Costco. The warehouse temple of middle-class stability where Americans stock their freezers, fill their carts, and feel briefly insulated from the chaos of the broader economy. Costco thrives when the American consumer thrives.
Remember, when faced with a choice between standing with the American worker or protecting the globalist status quo, Costco sided with the status quo.
So why file suit against the administration? The company’s board donated heavily to Democrats in the 2023-2024 cycle, and now its leadership wants its tariff money back. The lawsuit doubles as a political favor and a financial windfall.
In short, Costco refuses to accept the new populist moment.
Fighting the populist tax revolt
Trump’s tariff program funds his most audacious promise: eliminating income taxes for working Americans and issuing a $2,000 tariff “dividend” as early as next year. This would mark the largest direct transfer of economic power to workers in modern history.
Costco wants to stop it.
The company that markets itself as the moral alternative to Walmart now positions itself as the moral critic of tariff-driven tax abolition. For decades, Americans have trusted Costco as the “good” warehouse store — high quality, honest pricing, reliable value. But the rotisserie chicken glow fades fast when the company sues to block a working-class tax cut.
Costco insists its lawsuit is about fairness. Please. It’s all about politics.
Stuck in a pre-Trump mentality
Trump upended the left’s narrative by putting workers — not donors, not multinationals — at the center of national policy. The tariff-funded tax revolution threatens decades of Democratic posturing about “helping the little guy.”
So Costco’s leadership had to intervene.
The company claims it fears a pending Supreme Court ruling that overturns tariffs without refunding the money companies paid. In reality, Costco wants a heads-I-win, tails-I-win scenario.
If tariffs stay, Costco raises prices to recoup costs. If tariffs fall, Costco demands a refund. What it will not do is refund customers who paid higher prices.
Costco argues that tariffs fall under Congress’ taxing authority. A federal circuit court agreed, ruling that tariffs are a core congressional power. That argument never troubled Democrats when they rebranded an Obamacare tax as “not a tax” to shove it through the courts.
When Democrats extract revenue for their political projects, the courts call it progress. When tariffs return money to American workers, Costco calls it unconstitutional.
The truth about taxes
Income tax is the burden of wage earners, not the wealthy. Costco knows it. Democrats know it. Everyone knows it.
The wealthy use capital gains, trusts, foundations, and investment shelters. Eliminating income taxes barely touches them. It liberates the working class — precisely the group Democrats once claimed to defend while quietly shifting their coalition toward illegal aliens and the ever-expanding alphabet of sexual identities.
Trump exposed the contradiction: Democrats talk about workers. Trump delivers for them.
RELATED: Is a tariff a tax?
Costco chose poorly
Costco’s lawsuit will not collapse its business model. Americans will still buy their bulk salsa, tires, kayaks, paper towels, and of course, the hot-dog combo that has famously resisted inflation for decades.
But they will remember this moment.
When faced with a choice between standing with the American worker or protecting the globalist status quo, Costco sided with the status quo. A company famous for its generous return policy may soon see a return movement of its own as consumers decide they want their tariff-inflated dollars back.
The company’s lawsuit reveals something not so flattering about the “good” big-box store: Liberal elites love talking about helping workers — as long as it never requires losing money for workers.
The Trump tax-and-tariff revolution threatens that arrangement. And Costco’s leadership made its position clear. I’ll still eat their hot dogs after making a few returns and taking a few extra free samples.
Is a tariff a tax?
Is a tariff a tax? Many Americans have forgotten that this question, which has been in the news more or less all year, was fundamental to the American Revolution. And among American Patriots, or Whigs, meaning those who supported the colonists’ claims against Parliament, there was almost universal consensus that they were different things, constitutionally speaking.
Throughout the Imperial Crisis of 1763 to 1776, the consensus among the colonists was that Parliament had the right to regulate trade in the British Empire but had no right to tax the colonists. And they recognized that a regulation of trade might take the form of a duty imposed upon, for example, molasses imported from French colonies to favor molasses imported from British colonies.
The founding generation believed in the separation of powers.
In the colonists’ view, the Sugar Act of 1764 was an unconstitutional innovation. The Act was quite explicit, stating at the top that it was passed for the purpose of “applying the produce of such duties, and of the duties to arise by virtue of the said act, towards defraying the expences of defending, protecting, and securing the said colonies and plantations.” It was the first trade act to do that.
Townshend’s overreach
The Stamp Act of 1765, and the reaction to it, made the protest against the 1764 Sugar Act less conspicuous. The result of the actions taken against the Stamp Act was that many in Parliament did not grasp the American argument against the Sugar Act. Hence, Parliament passed the Townshend Acts in 1767, imposing duties on lead, glass, paper, paint, and tea to raise revenue. When the colonists complained, many in Parliament accused the colonists of moving the goalposts.
The charge was not accurate, but it did reflect what they believed. And, like many today, many members of Parliament were unable to grasp the difference between a duty imposed for the purpose of trade regulation and a duty imposed for the purpose of raising revenue.
The most famous criticism of the Townshend Acts, and the most popular writing of the era until Thomas Paine published “Common Sense” in January 1776, was John Dickinson’s “Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania.” In the second letter, Dickinson made the consensus Patriot argument logically, clearly, and eloquently.
There is another late act of parliament, which appears to me to be unconstitutional, and as destructive to the liberty of these colonies, as that mentioned in my last letter; that is, the act for granting the duties on paper, glass, etc.
The parliament unquestionably possesses a legal authority to regulate the trade of Great Britain, and all her colonies. Such an authority is essential to the relation between a mother country and her colonies; and necessary for the common good of all ...
I have looked over every statute relating to these colonies, from their first settlement to this time; and I find every one of them founded on this principle, till the Stamp Act administration.* All before, are calculated to regulate trade, and preserve or promote a mutually beneficial intercourse between the several constituent parts of the empire. ... The raising of a revenue thereby was never intended. ... Never did the British parliament, till the period above mentioned, think of imposing duties in America for the purpose of raising a revenue. ...
Here we may observe an authority expressly claimed and exerted to impose duties on these colonies; not for the regulation of trade; not for the preservation or promotion of a mutually beneficial intercourse between the several constituent parts of the empire, heretofore the sole objects of parliamentary institutions; but for the single purpose of levying money upon us.
This I call an innovation; and a most dangerous innovation.* It may perhaps be objected, that Great Britain has a right to lay what duties she pleases upon her exports.
That so many people today don’t seem to understand this distinction is a sign that the American bar seems to have gone Tory. The founding generation’s way of thinking about tariffs, and perhaps law in general, is in danger of being rendered foreign to our public policy discussion, perhaps even to constitutional discussion, even among people who mistakenly think of themselves as originalists.
This way of thinking, of course, says little about the current case, as the purpose of the law itself must be understood in light of the thinking of the men who passed it. But it is also true that the way of thinking that Dickinson represented, and which was broadly shared in the founding generation, might have something to say here.
Delegation’s limits
The founding generation believed in the separation of powers. The founders recognized, as “The Federalist” notes, that in practice the powers will inevitably overlap and sometimes clash. But they did operate within a way of legal and constitutional thinking that took it as a given that in order to guard the separation of powers, any delegation of legislative powers to the executive had to be limited and focused.
There is a difference between a reasonable and an unreasonable delegation of powers, just as there is between a tax and a regulation of trade, even if, in both cases, money is raised at customs houses. The kind of delegation the Trump administration is asserting in this case is difficult, perhaps impossible, to reconcile with the practice of separation of powers. Congress has no right to abdicate its obligation to set trade policy via legislation.
RELATED: Read it and weep: Tariffs work, and the numbers prove it
The Trump administration’s assertion that it has the right to set tariffs worldwide, claiming unlimited emergency power based on a law designed to delegate to the president a narrow emergency power, resembles the kind of expansive, arbitrary interpretation that the founders’ legal heroes fought.
In the 1630s, King Charles claimed the right to collect “ship money” throughout England. By tradition, the king had the right to raise money, without Parliament’s consent, in port towns in time of war, or if war was imminent.
King Charles asserted a living constitution interpretation: Given modern circumstances, he claimed a general right to raise taxes if a war emergency was imminent. Dickinson mentioned the case in the first Farmer’s Letters, suggesting there was a connection between the logic of the one argument and the other.
Our difficulty recognizing the limits of the nondelegation doctrine — and our confusion about the difference between a duty imposed to raise revenue and one imposed to regulate trade — shows how much work remains if we want to understand the Constitution as the framers did. That understanding requires grappling with the ideas about human nature, government, and law that justified ratification in the first place and that still anchor our constitutional order.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.
Canada's liberal prime minister gets embarrassed by football fans before country's biggest game
The average football fan is likely not a big supporter of Canada's prime minister.
Amid an ongoing trade and tariff war with President Donald Trump, Canada's Liberal leader, Mark Carney, made an appearance at the Grey Cup, the championship game for the Canadian Football League.
'We were cheered as well.'
On Sunday night, the East Division champion Montreal Alouettes and the West Division champion Saskatchewan Roughriders faced off at the Princess Auto Stadium in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. It was just an eight-point victory for the Roughriders, 25-17, but for Carney, exactly zero winning was had.
During the playing of the national anthem, fans shockingly paused their singing to boo the prime minister as he appeared on camera.
That was not all, though. During the coin toss, the CEO of cryptocurrency platform Coinbase joined the prime minister, and assuming the fans in Winnipeg were not staunch vocal supporters of physical currency, the raucous boos were likely directed at Carney when his name was announced.
About a minute later, Carney was booed even louder as the referee handed him the ceremonial coin and said, "Mr. Prime Minister, would you do us the honor?"
Mainstream Canadian outlet the National Post even described the boos as having "suddenly increased in volume" as Carney tossed the coin into the air.
Another video from the event went viral and appeared to show at least two fans getting vulgar with the Liberal Party leader.
"Carney! Carney!" a person called out, waving to him at first. The wave then turned into a middle finger, while at the same time a second football fan was heard yelling, "Yeah, you f**king commie, eh?!"
The prime minister was asked about the boos on Monday and claimed that at least some in the crowd were his supporters.
"You were booed," a reporter said as he entered Parliament, per the National Post. "What does that show you about Western disaffection?"
Carney responded, "We represent the entire country. We were cheered as well," he claimed.
The Grey Cup brings Canadians together across provinces, territories, and time zones to celebrate the very best of Canadian football — and last night was no exception.
Thanks for having me, Winnipeg, and congrats to the @sskroughriders on the big win. pic.twitter.com/rMEFQPKhBZ
— Mark Carney (@MarkJCarney) November 17, 2025
Carney later posted on X that the national championship "brings Canadians together" and that Sunday's game was "no exception."
Manitoba, where the game was played, voted slightly in favor of the Canadian Conservatives in the 2025 federal election, winning seven seats to the Liberals' six.
Saskatchewan's fans were more than likely conservative, voting the right-wing party in for 13 seats in 2025; the Liberal Party won just one in the province.
While Montreal's fans are very proud of their French culture, the province voted in favor of Liberals in the same election, handing them 44 out of a possible 78 seats.
Meanwhile, Carney recently apologized to President Trump over an ad that used former President Ronald Reagan in an attempt to dig at Trump's tariff policies.
The prime minister placed the blame on Ontario's Progressive-Conservative Premier Doug Ford, saying "I told Ford I did not want to go forward with the ad," which sparks further questions about the Liberal Party leader's relationship with what is supposedly an opposing party.
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If Trump Has The Power To Ban Trade, Then He Has The Power To Moderate It Through Tariffs
Legal precedent, diplomatic equilibrium, and economic logic point in this same direction — the president can impose tariffs under IEEPA.Supreme Court Signals Skepticism About Trump’s ‘Emergency’ Tariffs
'[T]hese are not things that are thought of as Article II powers, [but] quintessential Article I powers,' said Justice Kagan.Today's top stories
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