The U.S. Senate passed legislation Wednesday that would nullify U.S. tariffs on Canada, just as U.S. President Donald Trump is engaged in trade talks in Asia as well as an increasingly bitter trade spat with U.S.’s northern neighbour that is one of its largest economic partners.
The 50-46 tally was the latest in a series of votes this week to terminate the national emergencies that Trump has used to impose tariffs. While the resolutions won’t ultimately take effect, they have proven to be an effective way for Democrats to expose cracks between the president’s trade policy and Republican senators who have traditionally supported free trade arguments.
So it does nothing. Awesome.
Requires a presidential signature, like most legislation. It could only do anything if it had super majority votes, thus making it veto proof.
Showing that there’s more senate support against this policy isn’t nothing, but I do take your point.
So Trump really can do what ever the fuck he wants.
No. He can’t do tariffs without legislative approval. This is where the house would impeach him due to his blatant disregard of the constitution and the breaking of his path of office. Or the Supreme Court would step in to strip him of his illegal power.
… except the legislature and courts are captured by his party. The founding fathers were fucking idiots for thinking that “each branch competes against the others” without considering what would happen if allies captured all the branches. All of the safeguards against “hasty action” have become the cuffs that bind us against stopping this. They really did just make a king with a troublesome government in his way. And now the government is stepping out of the way.
If he vetos it, in a sane world you would assume that there were some senators that agreed with it but refused to break party lines. The president could exercise political calculus and sign it to cover for them. But instead it would get sent back to the senate, where senators may rationally choose breaking from Trump over shooting themselves (and everyone else) in the economic foot.
Thats in a sane world though, and we live in this shit instead
