The plans are likely to ratchet up the pressure, both legally and politically, that Trump’s tariffs were already facing.<\/p>\n
The administration is already embroiled in multiple lawsuits challenging different parts of the government’s tariff policy. <\/p>\n
The most recent suit, filed Oct. 20, targets Trump’s use of a Great Depression-era law to impose 50% tariffs on a range of Canadian goods.<\/p>\n
Another court case accuses Trump of trying to recreate the near-global “liberation day” tariffs that the Supreme Court struck down as illegal in late February. The administration has since been ordered to refund $166 billion in tariff revenue it had collected under the scrapped policy.<\/p>\n
Congress, not the president, holds the power to levy taxes under the U.S. Constitution. Over decades, the legislative branch has ceded some of those powers to the executive. But Trump has asserted virtually unchecked tariff powers \u2013 which Democrats say they are intent on clawing back.<\/p>\n
“Every day Trump insists on his indiscriminate taxes on so many of the products Americans need, he digs a deeper hole for Republicans enabling his tariff spree,” said Sen. Ron Wyden<\/a> of Oregon, who is poised to lead the Senate Finance Committee when Democrats take it over.<\/p>\n “If Democrats somehow had a veto-proof majority, or if voters shame Republicans into doing the right thing, there would be no shortage of trade policies to address,” Wyden said in a statement to CNBC before Election Day.<\/p>\n “One of the most obvious priorities would be repealing Trump’s tariffs on Canada, which are raising prices and harming communities on both sides of the border,” he said. “I’ll also continue to work to ensure Congress has the final say on tariffs, so future presidents can’t reenact Trump’s economically disastrous trade taxes.”<\/p>\n