President Donald Trump flexed his office’s national security powers to impose across-the-board duties on virtually all goods entering the U.S. But after relative silence over his last tariffs, his new ones may have stretched the power of the presidency too broadly to go unchecked, experts say.
On April 2, which Trump dubbed “Liberation Day,” the president announced a 10% tariff on imports from nearly all countries, with several dozen governments singled out for higher duty rates stretching up to 50%. To impose the new duties, Trump invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a decades-old statute authorizing the president to set new trade policies in response to a declared national emergency.