Trump’s tariffs, the Supreme Court and the New York Marathon

Trump’s tariffs, the Supreme Court and the New York Marathon

Trump’s lawyers are arguing his case for tariffs before the Supreme Court. There is one little contradiction in the papers filed with the court. On the one hand they argue that foreigners buying up American “assets” is a serious threat national security to require emergency executive powers over trade. Here is what they say “By the end of 2024, foreigners owned approximately $24 trillion more of U.S. assets than Americans owned of foreign assets. That imbalance has “weakened” the United States and “created an ongoing economic emergency of historic proportions.”

On the other hand, they argue that undoing Trump’s tariffs would jeopardize “trillions of dollars” in foreign investment that the president has negotiated in his shakedowns of our trading partners. They point to $600 billion in investments pledged by the European Union and another $1 trillion promised by the governments of Japan and South Korea. Those investments, the administration argues, will “rectify past imbalances.” (Note: this is from Reason https://reason.com/2025/11/03/in-tariff-case-trumps-attorneys-cant-decide-if-foreign-investment-is-good-or-bad-for-america/)

Now let me get this straight: foreign investment is a threat to national security except when it comes from the shakedowns by the president in his tariff negotiations with our trading partners. I am sure that the justices will question the logic of this argument. It will be interesting to see the government’s response. Regardless, I fully expect the president to lose this one. The question is whether the ruling will be unanimous.

The New York marathon was again a showcase for the Kenyans. They took the first three places in both the men’s and the women’s divisions. Benson Kipruto won the men’s in a time of 2:08:09. Hellen Obiri won the women’s with a time of 2:19:51 – a new course record. The top three women all broke the old record. Kipruto’s time translates to 4:57 minutes per mile over the 26.2 mile course. I am old enough to remember when that time could win a one mile race. The women’s time translates to 5:19 per mile. As an ex-marathoner, these times do not compute.

I have run 13 marathons and have the t-shirts to prove it. My goal was to run under four hours which would qualify me to run the Boston Marathon. I was on the faculty of UNC-Chapel Hill and started training with a professor in the law school who was a 3:33:00 marathoner. Every weekend we would do a 20 mile run and ran splits during the week. My previous best time was 4:09:00 and we were confident that running on a flat course I would break four hours. So I ran a marathon in Norfolk. When I went through the 20 mile mark I was on a 3:50:00 pace. The next memory was waking up in a tent with an IV in my arm. I had collapsed – even though I had kept hydrated. I never ran another. My body had redlined and was telling me to stick with the half marathons or run the full marathon at a more leisurely pace. So I ran a half every year and a 10 k every month. I was never fast. In fact, during my first marathon – DC’s Cherry Blossum marathon – I got passed by a race walker. But I did get better and ran the first three Marine Corps marathons. Again I have the t-shirts to prove it.

One of my neighbor’s daughters ran this year’s New York and finished a bit over 5 hours. My congratulations to her and to all the finishers. New York is a tough race with all the hills. In fact the world’s greatest marathoner Ellliud Kipchoge’s kryptonite are hills. He is the only human to run a marathon under two hours. All of his victories have been on flat courses. He finished 17^th in New York running a 2:14:16. By running New York, Kipchoge has finished all seven major world marathons. He is the only person to have won four of them (Chicago, London, Berlin, and Tokyo) and to set course records at three (London, Berlin, and Tokyo). He is now 40 years old and may retire as the greatest marathoner of all time.

This year an amazing 59,226 runners finished the New York Marathon. I wish that I had been one of them.