From The Hill:
“The biggest threat in history to United States National Security would be a negative decision on Tariffs by the U.S. Supreme Court. We would be financially defenseless,” the president wrote in an early morning Truth Social post.
Is that a threat? Anyway, seems like a lot o ftrade policy uncertainty…
Figure 1: EPU-trade from Baker, Bloom and Davis (blue, left scale), and Trade Policy Uncertainty from Caldara et al. (red, right scale). Source: policyuncertainty.com and Iacoviello.com.
once again, trump is simply a con man. a supreme court decision against trump is not a decision against tariffs, as he is won’t to imply. tariffs are still legal. what is illegal is the random imposition of tariffs by trump. the constitution is very clear that tariffs are the domain of congress, not the president. so we are not defenseless, as long as congress does its job (which is an entirely different question). trump is simply crying wolf because somebody may tell him he actually needs to follow the laws of the constitution, a document he is supposed to uphold but does not.
The Supreme Court majority is a product of the Federalist Society. They serve the ideology of the Federalist Society. To the extent that the felon-in-chief serves the same ideology, the Court sides with him. In the case of tariffs, Trump is diametrically opposed to the views of the Federalist Society. In fact, a satellite organization to the Society brought the IEEPA case. Leonard Leo is, in the felon’s words, a sleazebag and the Society recommends the “worst judges in history”.
Only if the Court majority sees itself at risk will they bow to the felon in this case. The ruling in IEEPA will reveal the majority’s perception of its own resilience against presidential attack.
The Federalist challenge to the felon-in-chief’s tariffs is all about power. The Federalist Society was instrumental in the felon’s winin his first-term primaries; they got him elected. He, in turn gave them control over the appointment of judges. Everybody is happy.
At the same time, the felon crossed the Society on tariffs. Tariffs have long been yhe felin’s pet pony. At some point, the Society had to stand up for itself, or lose power – become just another subsidieary of the felon cult. The Federalist Society intends to be around and powerful after the felon is gone. That can’t happen if they lay down in an ideological battle.
Lemme see if I’ve got this right. We allow Russia to export oil with a shadow fleet of tankers, in violation of international sanctions, withthe side effect that large, uninsured vessels impose risks all over the place, but we stop Venezuelan tankers:
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/10/us-venezuela-oil-tanker-seize.html
Because Venezuela is a massive risk to the international order, while Russia is one of the good guys.
Totally off topic from economics, let me just add that, if we seriously attack Venezuela, we do not know how the rest of the world will react (and it is nearly certain that T—-p has not given this a moment’s thought.
For example, what will the rest of Latin America do? It is very unlikely they will just sit on the sidelines. Will they cut off trade with the US? Bar US tourists? Send arms to Venezuela?
How about Russia and China? Putin has already voiced support for Venezuela. But do they go further? Supply arms to Venezuela? Escort Venezuelan shipping through the Caribbean with their navies? Enforce a blockade to US shipping through the Panama Canal, with Panama’s consent?
Will the EU enact trade and tourism sanctions against the U.S.?
Almost certainly someone will bring a case against the US with the ICC. The US does not accept its jurisdiction, but international travel for members of the T—-p Administration once they leave office is probably off the table.
In short, the US could be blindly walking into a shredder.
Yes, you have that right, at last! I can’t tell you how many of your comments I’ve read that seem to indicate you had fallen victim to the anti-totalitarian propaganda of Liberal Western Europe and other degenerate civilization remnants (like Canada and the Democrat Party.)
Welcome aboard, Comrade!
(/s for those who need it.)
I’m hurt…er…I mean I’m touched.
Years of low tariffs were years of unparalleled American strength and influence. Tariffs on bananas and coffee and manufacturing inputs do not make us more secure.
Off topic – The Fed cut rates by 25 basis points today, and released a new Summary of Economic Projections:
https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/fomcprojtabl20251210.htm
The central estimates for the funds rate are for another 25 basis point cut next year and another in 2027. That’s despite projections of above-trend GDP growth and above-target inflation next year and conventional Taylor rule settings showing monetary policy already neutral:
https://www.atlantafed.org/cqer/research/taylor-rule
Meanwhile, the BoJ seems to be ready to hike rates soon, maybe next week:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-09/boj-s-ueda-says-japan-is-getting-closer-to-sustainable-inflation
That combined prospect of lower Fed rates and higher BoJ rates has sparked talk of carry-trades unwinding. Unwinding carry trades would weaken the dollar, adding to both growth and inflation.
By the way,I don’t know how large the eur/jpy carry trade is (usd/jpy is probably around half a trillion dollars), but eur is up 9.5% against jpy over the past 6 months vs just 8.4% for the dollar.
Speaking of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Trump just seized an oil tanker on the high seas on its way from Venezuela to Cuba. Even JFK never seized ships. This is just outright piracy. Just like the Somalis Trump is so fond of.
here is an example of how renewables are getting the shaft.
https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/offshore-wind/firstenergy-bribery-lawsuit-icebreaker-lake-erie
this project should have been completed a decade ago, and producing power to Cleveland from Lake Erie. and it would have opened up the Great Lakes as a tremendous wind farm opportunity. instead, we got more dirty coal producers.
the Great Lakes could power data centers for free with wind farms and water cooling the data centers with cold lake water. that is an open business opportunity you can take to google and make a fortune. and I gave it to you for free on the internet.