Congress Voted to Expand Presidential Tariff Power—Now It Owns What Comes Next

Clark Packard, Alfredo Carrillo Obregon, and Eli DeLuca

For nearly a decade, the executive branch has abused the broad, highly discretionary tariff authorities Congress granted it throughout the 20th century. These abuses have imposed high economic costs on American firms and consumers; undermined the United States’ international standing; and fueled rent-seeking cronyism in Washington. Thus far, Congress has failed to rein in those abuses by reforming the underlying laws and reasserting its constitutional authority over tariffs and trade policy. To be sure, the political costs of limiting the executive branch’s powers—particularly concerning policies that benefit many well-connected, highly concentrated special interests and are simultaneously intertwined with sensitive issues like “national security” and geopolitical competition with China—are high for most legislators. 

But what is indefensible is for Congress, knowing about the economic costs and political dysfunction engendered by executive tariff abuse, to grant even broader and highly discretionary tariff authorities to the White House—and this president in particular. Yet, that is exactly what Congress did on September 16, when the House of Representatives passed the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026.

We have previously outlined the flaws of the tariff mechanism approved as part of this legislation to sanction the largest purchasers of Russian energy and the largest enablers of Russian sanctions evasion. To be clear, our criticisms have nothing to do with the underlying objective of supporting Ukraine or even with the foreign policy merits of doing so by putting economic pressure on these countries. But achieving them need not require giving the executive branch outsized discretion to impose additional annual tariff costs as high as $400 billion on a static basis. And discouragingly, even amendments that would have kept this mechanism in place but limited its proneness to presidential abuse did not even make it out of committee. Congress is, indeed, content to abdicate its Article I authority for political convenience.

Until now, lawmakers had an alibi. The statutes the administration relied on were enacted decades ago in policy landscapes very different than today—plus, the president invoked them on his own. When he imposed 25 percent tariffs on imported upholstered furniture in the name of “national security,” members of Congress could accurately claim he acted on his own. 

When the Supreme Court held in February that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not authorize tariffs, the administration pivoted to a 1974 balance-of-payments statute drafted for a world with fixed exchange rates (which no longer exists). After the Court of International Trade ruled against those tariffs in May—and after they lapsed in July—the White House concocted a forced labor rationale in 60 countries to impose yet another round of new tariffs. Congress could look the other way and treat all of it as a battle between the president and the courts.

That alibi is now gone. This time, Congress wrote the new authority itself, with the whole record in front of it. The bill lets the president set tariffs up to 100 percent on the largest buyers of Russian oil and gas that continue purchasing these goods, as well as on the largest facilitators of Russian sanctions evasion. Yet it never specifies which data determine who those buyers or facilitators are. It leaves the executive branch to decide whether a country’s efforts to cut Russian energy purchases are “significant” for reducing tariffs. And Congress failed to reserve any power to approve or block any particular tariff (it may only disapprove of a presidential decision to terminate a tariff). Every member who voted yes had President Trump’s track record in plain sight. Whatever tariffs follow will carry their fingerprints.

Ironically, there’s a non-negligible chance that once this authority is used to impose high tariffs, some of the legislators who voted to approve it will petition the executive branch for relief from such onerous duties for their constituents. Earlier this week, it was reported that staunch Trump tariff supporter Sen. Katie Britt (R‑AL) quietly lobbied the administration for exemptions from Section 232 and Section 301 tariffs for companies in her state. “Tariffs for thee, but not for me,” is alive and well.

Moreover, the political shortsightedness of voting to grant additional tariff powers to the executive is baffling. According to a Cato Institute/​Morning Consult poll released on September 17—roughly six weeks before the midterms—75 percent of voters will take tariffs into consideration when casting their ballots, 74 percent believe the president’s tariffs have raised prices, and 57 percent disapprove of his handling of trade. Other polls have been warning about the unpopularity of tariffs for months, yet Congress simply ignored this message.

For years, Congress could honestly tell voters that various tariff messes were the president’s own doing. This week, it forfeited that excuse and now owns any additional duties imposed through the Russian sanctions bill it wrote and approved. When the first tariff bill arrives, voters will know exactly whom to thank.