1. United States
2. Ariz.
3. Letter

No one person—regardless of party, popularity, or perceived prowess—should have unilateral power to reshape the entire global trade system with the tap of a screen. And yet, that’s precisely the power any modern U.S. president can wield under current interpretations of outdated law. The Constitution is unambiguous: The power to levy tariffs rests with Congress. The Framers understood that taxation, trade policy, and economic rule-making must reflect the will of the people—deliberated, debated, and decided by their elected representatives. They did not intend for that power to be outsourced to any single office, much less to one individual operating with few checks and virtually no balances. And yet, here we are. We’ve seen tariffs issued on a whim, paused without plan, altered for political gain, and used as a bargaining chip in a game of global brinkmanship. Retirement accounts shrink, prices rise, small businesses flounder, and global confidence in U.S. stability erodes—not because of war or crisis, but because of the unchecked discretion of one person. This is not a partisan issue. It’s a governance issue. And it’s time Congress treated it as such. When Congress delegates away its core responsibilities—when it shrinks from conflict, ignores constitutional boundaries, and enables executive overreach—it erodes not only its own legitimacy, but the legitimacy of the entire democratic experiment. The economy doesn’t need chaos, and the global system doesn’t need uncertainty. It needs predictability, accountability, and rule of law. Congress has tools. It has precedent. It even has bipartisan will. But what it needs now is courage. Lawmakers who respect the Constitution must act swiftly and decisively: • Nullify unauthorized tariffs. • Clarify that only Congress has the authority to impose or lift them. • Restore legislative oversight over the levers of economic power. Tariffs can be strategic, and they can be just. But they must be lawful and deliberated—not impulsively imposed like royal edicts. If members of Congress cannot summon the will to reclaim this fundamental power, then citizens will use theirs at the ballot box . Because the longer Congress abdicates this responsibility, the harder it becomes to reclaim—and the closer we drift toward a model of governance the Founders rejected: government by decree. This isn’t just about tariffs. It’s about who we are—and who gets to decide the rules of our shared economy.