But on the US side - can a US citizen maybe explain the legal basis of the current tectonic shift in trade policy enacted through the tariffs? So far I assumed that the federal executive branch could only use tariffs to address security concerns or unfair practices. The actual policy change (especially the 10% base rate) is definitely more than that.
The challenge of course, is that it takes a lot of time to legally challenge it, and in the meantime, we have this chaos.
This is why choosing a moral, steady, wise leader is important. The system can't keep up with the alternative.
The conclusion ought to be that the executive shouldn’t have such powers.
DOGE is also an example of this. No clue whether for the better or worse. But the mechanism being used was put in place by Obama during affordable care act overhauls, as part of USDS (US digital services).
All the analysis I've read about it say that the one-sided implementation of broad tariffs is not legal according to current US laws.
It doesn't matter though until it's litigated, goes through courts, appeals, Supreme Court, while all that process is ongoing the tariffs are there. And who the fuck knows how the Supreme Court will decide on this in the end?
There is not a lot of case law on this, so the final outcome is unpredictable.
The courts, as usual, will first decide which outcome they prefer. They will then try to find some reasoning that will give them that outcome without looking too foolish. The latter step is easy in this case, but it's at least plausible that the courts don't want to crash the global economy. So it could go either way.
Regardless, this is likely to take a while. Courts are slow, especially on contentious issues.
It's also possible that the executive just tries to ignore an unfavorable ruling, as they have already done in other instances; nobody really knows what will happen in that eventuality...
tl:dr Congress has for various historical reasons decided to cede more and more power over trade regulation to the executive branch over the years, starting all the way back in the 30s. This has resulted in the president having almost unilateral leeway to decide what constitutes "security concerns or unfair practices" when it comes to trade. And until congress passes a bill to reign in that power, it is probably legal for the president to decide that almost anything is 'unfair' and that basically any response is reasonable.