President Donald Trump is trying to "shift the exercise of core tariff authority from Congress to the Executive Branch," three former trade officials warn in a brief they filed last week. If that sounds familiar, it's because Trump has attempted something similar twice before, only to be rebuffed by the courts.
This time around, the brief notes, Trump is relying on Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, claiming "a sweeping power to impose broad, economy-wide tariffs untethered from the statute Congress enacted." That assessment is especially noteworthy because the brief's authors, who are urging the Court of International Trade (CIT) to reject Trump's power grab, were intimately involved in drafting and enforcing Section 301.
