Here’s why that line is slick, selective, and misleading:
Text vs. implementation.
Yes—Article I, §8 gives Congress the power to “lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts, and Excises.” Nobody disputes that. But for over a century, Congress has lawfully delegated implementation authority to the Executive under intelligible-principle statutes. That’s not a loophole; that’s black-letter separation of powers in practice.
The courts already blessed this—repeatedly.
Field v. Clark (1892): Upheld presidential power to adjust import measures when statutory conditions are met.
J.W. Hampton, Jr. & Co. v. United States (1928): The “intelligible principle” case—Congress can let the President vary tariff rates within statutory limits.
American Institute for Int’l Steel v. United States (Fed. Cir. 2020): Upheld §232 (Trade Expansion Act of 1962) national-security tariffs; SCOTUS denied cert.
Add the foreign-affairs backdrop from Curtiss-Wright (1936): the Executive has wider latitude externally (not a blank check, but real deference).
Congress wrote the modern tariff levers on purpose.
§232 (1962): President can act if imports threaten national security.
§201 (Safeguards): Temporary relief from surges.
§301 (1974): Retaliation for unfair trade practices.
AD/CVD laws: Duties to offset dumping and foreign subsidies.
Trade agreements authority (since 1934): Congress let the President proclaim negotiated rate cuts/changes.
If you hate how these are used, your beef is with Congress’s statutes, not the Constitution.
“Tariffs are taxes on Americans” is half the story.
Tariffs are collected from U.S. importers; incidence is shared. Exporters often eat margin (price concessions), distributors compress spreads, and consumers see partial pass-through. Elasticities, market power, and terms-of-trade matter. Calling them “nothing but taxes on Americans” ignores the real (messy) incidence math and the strategic effects Congress explicitly contemplated.
Separation of powers is preserved, not violated.
Delegation ≠ surrender. Congress sets the policy, limits, triggers, procedures, and remedies, and it can amend or repeal those delegations tomorrow. Courts police the boundaries. That’s separation of powers functioning, not failing.
Bottom line: Saying “only Congress can impose tariffs” and implying the President can’t act is ahistorical and legally wrong. Congress did impose tariffs—by statute—and told the President when and how to pull the levers. If you want fewer levers, rewrite the statutes. Don’t pretend the levers don’t exist.