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President Donald Trump used his State of the Union address to tell lawmakers he won’t need their approval for his plan to replicate his tariff policy, adding that he anticipates recently agreed trade deals will hold because the alternative for countries “could be far worse.”
“Congressional action will not be necessary,” Trump said during a more than 100-minute speech – the longest in history.
The Supreme Court on Friday struck down a slate of tariffs introduced last year under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The Trump administration has already pivoted to another authority. Trump adopted a 10% global tariff on Tuesday under a legal mechanism designed to address balance-of-payments issues, which he says will rise to 15%.
This instrument, Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, allows for tariffs of up to 15% for a period of 150 days. After that deadline, Congress must vote to keep the tariffs in place.
Tariffs “will remain in place under fully approved and tested alternative legal statutes,” Trump said. “They're a little more complex, but they're actually probably better, leading to a solution that will be even stronger than before.”
Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith, R-Mo., told Agri-Pulse earlier in the day that he isn’t expecting any votes in Congress after 150 days.
“We won't have to worry about that, because the president is going to do enough 301s, 232s to implement his [trade] strategy by then,” he said, referring to Section 301 of the same act, which is used to counter countries’ unfair trade practices, and Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which justifies tariffs over national security concerns.
Legal analysts have speculated that after the 150-days, Trump could revoke the Section 122 proclamation and issue a new one to authorize the global tariff for another 150 days.
Such a scenario would be “unchartered territory,” Smith said. “Maybe he’ll try it.”
Several of the Supreme Court justices that voted to strike down Trump’s emergency tariffs were in attendance at the State of the Union, including Amy Coney Barrett, who Trump referred to on Friday as an “embarrassment” to her family.
Trump issued a veiled threat to countries thinking about reneging on their commitments made in recent trade pacts in light of the changed U.S. tariff landscape.
“The good news is that almost all countries and corporations want to keep the deal that they already made,” he said. The alternative, he added, “could be far worse for them.”
The president took the dais for his first State of the Union of his second term against a backdrop of falling public support and falling voter confidence in the economy. A new Washington Post-IPSOS-ABC News nationwide poll conducted earlier this month showed just 39% approve of Trump’s performance, while 60% disapprove.
Accordingly, Trump devoted a section of his speech to arguing that his administration has made progress in bringing down costs of consumer staples, including beef. Beef prices are up 15% year-over-year, according to according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But wholesale prices for many cuts have eased since the middle of last year, according to data from the Cattlemen’s Beef Board and National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.
Beef “is starting to come down significantly,” he told lawmakers. “We're getting it down. And soon you will see numbers that few people would think were possible to achieve just a short time ago.”
Trump also argued that his administration has "lifted" 2.4 million Americans off out of food assistance, which he called "a record."
A USDA spokesperson sent Agri-Pulse a link to data showing SNAP participation falling from 42.9 million in Dec. 24 to 40.4 million in November -- a 2.5 million decrease.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., in comments to reporters on Tuesday tried to preempt the president declaring victory on prices.
“The state of our union under the presidency of Donald Trump is a complete and total disaster,” he argued. “Costs have gone up. Life has gotten more expensive for the American people.”
More than two dozen Democrats opted to skip the State of the Union event in protest. Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, was also escorted out of the chamber early in the speech after unveiling a sign reading “Black people aren’t apes!”
One of the largest applauses of the evening from the Republican benches came during a section of the speech on immigration. Trump implored lawmakers to stand and demonstrate their report for what he called a “fundamental principle,” that the “first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.”
This section of the speech also included a call for Congress to approve the Save America Act, which would require voters to present identification, and to pass a law preventing states from giving commercial driver's licenses to undocumented applicants.
