Sen. Ted Cruz has begged President Donald Trump to stop listening to the tariff hawks in his administration and “take the deal” countries are offering to lower trade barriers.
Sen. Ted Cruz has begged President Donald Trump to stop listening to the tariff hawks in his administration and “take the deal” countries are offering to lower trade barriers.
From the US Constitution:
"Article I, Section 10, Clause 2:
No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it’s inspection Laws: and the net Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use of the Treasury of the United States; and all such Laws shall be subject to the Revision and Controul of the Congress." source
I won’t call you Ted, because I know how much you hate people forcing preferred names. Rafael Cruz, you have the power granted to you by the US Constitution to stop the trump tariffs. You don’t need to ask trump. The power is yours. Use it!
How Congress delegates its tariff powers to the president
According to the Congressional Research Service, there are six statutory provisions currently in place that control how the president and the executive branch can use tariffs. Three provisions require federal agency investigations before a tariff can be imposed. The other provisions do not require an investigation before actions are taken.
…
Among the three provisions that allow the president to act on his own to impose tariffs without an investigation, only one has ever been used: the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977. The act allows the president to declare an emergency under the National Emergency Act (NEA) and then use his extensive economic powers to regulate or prohibit imports. The CRS says that President Trump was the first chief executive to use this act in February 2025, when he announced tariffs on Canada, China, and Mexico. The emergency stated by the president can be terminated at this request, or by a joint resolution of Congress.
Those Acts are laws written by Congress. Congress also has the power to write new laws amending or removing the previous ones. Again, its still in Rafael’s (and his coworkers) hands to stop trump’s tariffs.
Sure. With a majority in two houses and a signature from the President. Or a supermajority, in the event they need to override a veto.
A big part of the problem is that Cruz’s allies still think the tariffs are a good idea. Or, at least, they think their political futures are predicated on supporting Trump’s tariffs, because Trump commands the party middle-management that guarantees them their elevated positions. They won’t take away Trump’s authority, because it doesn’t benefit them to do so.
This isn’t strictly a Trump problem. It is the problem of governing a nation of 330M people with a captured cartel of 438 cronies of business goons.
I don’t disagree, but Cruz is being disingenuous that he doesn’t have a pathway. He could introduce legislation removing trump’s tariff powers. Even if it doesn’t pass, he could still force his colleagues to vote on the record to keep the tariffs in place.
Individually, he’s got as much say as Bernie Sanders or Cory Booker.
He didn’t even have to do that much. Just sign on to existing legislation. Cruz chickened out on that vote and left the Kentucky Chucklefucks, Collins, and Murkowski to do the heavy lifting. But it’s DOA in the House, so even this seems perfunctory.
Dude’s a total slimeball and a deceitful POS, without a doubt. But with Schumer rolling over on general spending bills, he’s not even the first Senator in the line of people I’m angry at.