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Comment by darksaints | Hacker News Reader

This. There is no reason why any country should trust us anymore if entire trade relations can be destroyed by a presidential whim.

Even if Trump fell out of a window today and we got a pro-trade president tomorrow, we’re not fixing this damage for a very long time.

We probably would have to amend the constitution to insulate foreign policy from the whims of a single person if we want any chance of fixing this in our lifetime.

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It's already there in the Constitution - Article II, Section 2, Clause 2. Unfortunately other countries chose not to require things in writing and were happy with pinky promises that could be reneged.

I mean, most of international law and deals are basically pinky promises. But grown-ups are supposed to keep those pinky promises

We (Canada) literally signed the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement for trade in 2020... with Donald Trump. Trump this February said "Who would ever sign a thing like this?" and proceeded to make up the story about fentanyl coming from Canada as a pretense to ignore this deal. So there was certainly more than a pinky promise.

Additionally your senate just signed law to repeal the tariffs against Canada specifically so I don't know what other receipts or paperwork you'd like here. Not that I expect Trump to adhere to that of course, but I've never heard the perspective of "well these weren't signed agreements" for things that clearly were.

Yep, he’s doing to other countries what he’s done to contractors, plumbers, and other tradesmen for years.

> Additionally your senate just signed law to repeal the tariffs against Canada specifically so I don't know what other receipts or paperwork you'd like here.

That bill won't pass the crazy house, but yes, CUSMA was signed law.

There is a technicality in normal times, though: ratifying treaties negotiated by the President only need to pass the Senate.

It doesn't require a constitutional amendment, we can just repeal the law [0] being used, which would ironically involve the same number of votes as keeping the law but slapping down Trump's particular usage of it. (That's now how it originally worked, but the easy-slapdown route got ruled unconstitutional.)

Military alliance stuff might be harder. Some stuff like NATO is supported by actual legislation, but other stuff was set up as a kind of gentleman's agreement with the US President-du-jour on the assumption that successors wouldn't be crazy.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Emergency_Econom...

> we can just repeal the law [0] being used

Only with a veto-proof majority in both chambers.

Maybe, but vetoes are politically very expensive. Even if he threatens to veto, Congress should still do it. Not doing obvious things because they might run into opposition/problems is a recipe for more and worse of the same.

> Maybe, but vetoes are politically very expensive.

As are felony convictions, top secret docs in a bathroom at your house, sexual assault settlements, and the hundred other career-ending scandals the guy has survived without a scratch so far.

Agreed, but maybe Congress takes action on one thing they'll find it in themselves to take action on a second thing. Having been in a lot of real fights, standing there and doing nothing is almost invariably the worst choice.

theres 0 actual political cost to them.

trump doesnt need anything from congress, and probably wouldnt change tariff policy even after said law is passed in a veto-proof way

Doing nothing and just watching how how dictatorship pans out is also an option, sure.

Congress is 55-ish% Trump’s party and 45-ish% everyone else. Nobody in the Trump party would ever, ever, ever do something Trump didn’t want. The entire party platform is basically “whatever Trump wants”. Anyone who disagrees was primaried out of existence long ago.

There is no congress any more, not as an independent body. There is Trump, and there is a body of people who will, in the majority, do anything Trump wants them to do, and is not independent in any way.

Yes, just like I said: "which would ironically involve the same number of votes as keeping the law but slapping down Trump's particular usage of it."

Originally it wasn't veto-able (only needed a Concurrent Resolution of 50% in each house, no Presidential signature) but the Supreme Court ruled that part unconstitutional in the early 80s.

The president constitutionally doesn’t actually have this authority - the power to set tariffs is supposed to be exclusively the prerogative of the legislature, but Trump declares pro forma emergencies and the Republicans in power aren’t willing to check his power.

Passing law that removes tariff authority from the president would be a good start to rebuilding trust.

The rest of the world would still be at the mercy of an untrustworthy government that is largely incapable of any semblance of long term thinking. To say nothing of the weirdos who regularly vote for that government and who they tend to elect.

I don’t think that would matter at all. Pass all the laws you want, when the head of the executive branch orders the CBP to collect tariffs, they will. We’ve long since left the rule of law.

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