The White House ballroom and Trump’s unlawful tariffs 

The White House ballroom and Trump’s unlawful tariffs 

After lambasting the Fed for spending $2.7 billion of its own money on renovations to its aging headquarters and subsequent cost overruns, the White House has announced its own renovations. Actually it is not a renovation, it is an entirely new structure. The administration has no shame. It seems that the president wants a new 90,000 square foot ballroom. I guess Trump is going to throw some awfully big parties. Well it does leave a lot of room for his dancing. I wonder if he is going to invite the Village People to the grand opening to play YMCA? The cost is supposed to be $200 million with Trump and his buddies funding it. Trump is supposed to pay for any cost overruns. Want to bet? The press calls this a “massive” renovation and they found some “experts” to raise concerns about whether it will “respect the historic nature of the building.” Others were found that were “aghast” at the enormity of the project which will be twice the size of the White House complex. We also get the predictable whining about spending money on a golden ballroom while nixing money for pediatric cancer research. Or how about “Donald Trump wants your kids to go with fewer dolls while he gets a billion dollar airplane and a ballroom”? Oh boy. This is the administration of bad optics. But if you have Trump Derangement Syndrome any optic is a bad one.

The case involving Trump’s tariffs is now being heard at the US Court of Appeals. One court, the US Court of International Trade ruled that Trump did not have the authority to implement his “reciprocal” tariffs. The administration appealed to the Court of Appeals which allowed the tariffs while it deliberated. If Trump loses here – and I expect that he will – it will be interesting if he ignores this court’s ruling while he appeals to the Supreme Court. For an excellent summary of the first day in court and the economic analysis of the arguments see Don Boudreaux’s “A note on today’s oral arguments in VOS v Trump.” 

A Note On Today’s Oral Arguments In V.O.S. v. Trump

Trump’s final set of tariffs are supposed to have been implemented on August 1 and were full of surprises like his 39% tariff on the Swiss. Hey, you got to protect Hershey, don’t you? The question then arises as to whether the administration will dismantle the tariffs when it loses or will it wait for a judgment by the Supreme Court. To recap: to impose his tariffs the president invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) claiming that trade deficits constitute a “national emergency.” Of course, this is nonsense and Don Boudreaux does a wonderful job explaining the speciousness of the argument. Trump knows that this is a lie but could probably not find any other basis to invoke the tariffs. Certainly a president does not have unlimited authority to unilaterally impose tariffs. The Constitution gives that power to the Congress making the president’s lawyers having to defend the indefensible. The president in his usual hyperbole said to his lawyers, “Good luck in America’s big case today. If our Country was not able to protect itself by using TARIFFS AGAINST TARIFFS, WEWOULD BE ‘DEAD,’ WITH NO CHANCE OF SURVIVAL OR SUCCESS.” Good grief. 

In the first day of questioning, the judges seemed skeptical of the administration’s arguments. Said one judge, “One of the major concerns that I have is that IEEPA doesn’t even mention the word tariffs anywhere.” Another judge said “It’s just hard for me to see that Congress intended to give the president in IEEPA the wholesale authority to throw out the tariff schedule that Congress has adopted after years of careful work and revise every one of these tariff rates.” I hope one of the eleven judges asks that if the trade deficits posed such a threat to national security then why did Trump levy them on countries with whom we have a surplus. 

Although the Justice Department said that the trade deficit has been “exploding” in recent years, rising from $559 billion in 2019 to $903 billion in 2024 it could not explain why such an “explosion” constituted a threat. On the contrary Boudreaux shows why our trade deficits are hardly a threat to the country and certainly not to its national security. 

I would be stunned if the Appeals court did not affirm the International Trade Court’s decision and blocked the imposition of the tariffs. Then it will be interesting if Trump decided to ignore the decision of a US Appeals Court.