May 28, 2025.

Today's news continues yesterday's.

Judges continue to decide cases against Trump,

with a three-judge panel at the U.S. Court of International Trade

ruling today that President

Donald J. Trump's sweeping Liberation Day tariffs are illegal. The judges, one appointed

by President Ronald Reagan, one by President Barack Obama, and one by Trump himself, noted

that the U.S. Constitution gives exclusively to Congress the power to impose tariffs.

In 1977, Congress passed the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, often abbreviated as IEEP-E-P-A,

delegating to the president the power to adjust tariffs

in times of national emergency,

but Trump has used that power far beyond

what the Constitution will permit.

Since he took office on January 20, 20, 2025,

the judges noted, Trump has declared several national

emergencies and imposed various tariffs in response. But the IEEPA has meaningful limits, the court

writes, and an unlimited delegation of tariff authority would be unconstitutional.

The court blocked all the tariffs Trump imposed under the IEPA, thus ending Trump's tariff spree,

although the administration will appeal. Congress manifestly is not permitted to abdicate or to transfer to others the essential legislative functions with which it is thus vested, the court writes.

That principle echoes far beyond tariffs as the impoundment of funds by the Department of Government Efficiency takes from Congress the power to pass laws that the executive branch must faithfully execute.

Tariffs were in the news today in another way, too, as Wall Street analysts have begun to talk of Taco Trade, short for Trump always chickens out. The phrase was coined

earlier this month by Robert Armstrong of Financial Times and refers to Trump's habit of threatening

...