Congress delegated its power to impose duties(tariffs) to the presidency long ago.

[drray23]

Here is an excellent article which describes how this happened over time:

https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/how-congress-delegates-its-tariff-powers-to-the-president

In particular:

Congress increasingly took a less active role in levying tariffs directly, especially after the 16th Amendment’s ratification in 1913 led to a federal income tax that replaced tariffs as a main source of federal government revenue. In 1934, Congress passed the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act, which gave President Franklin Roosevelt the ability to change tariffs rates by 50% and negotiate bilateral trade agreements without additional approval from Congress. Since then, the president has mostly controlled and executed tariffs policies as defined by Congress.

Since then, there are six laws that gives a way for the president to raise tariffs, three of them require extra steps like federal investigations, three do not and rely upon other mechanisms like emergencies.

Among the three provisions that allow the president to act on his own to impose tariffs without an investigation, only one has ever been used: the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977. The act allows the president to declare an emergency under the National Emergency Act (NEA) and then use his extensive economic powers to regulate or prohibit imports. The CRS says that President Trump was the first chief executive to use this act in February 2025, when he announced tariffs on Canada, China, and Mexico. The emergency stated by the president can be terminated at this request, or by a joint resolution of Congress.

Note that Trump was the first one to abuse this emergency clause. This is what the senate just voted against yesterday.

So, technically if we had a functioning congress, all these laws could be rewritten/repealed and the global economic crisis stopped.

One more reason we need to wipe out the GOP from congress.