No. of Recommendations: 15
The United States is supposed to follow the rule of law. But the word "emergency" is a trump card that allows the executive to bypass rules enacted by Congress. Unfortunately, President Trump has used this trump card many times to impact the Macro economy.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/08/22/us/...How Trump Used 10 Emergency Declarations to Justify Hundreds of Actions
By Karen Yourish and Charlie Smart, The New York Times, Aug. 22, 2025
In his seven months back in office, President Trump has declared nine national emergencies, plus a “crime emergency” in Washington. Those emergency declarations have been used to justify hundreds of actions — including immigration measures, sweeping tariffs and energy deregulation — that would typically require congressional approval or lengthy regulatory review, according to a New York Times analysis of presidential documents...
All presidents have the authority under the National Emergencies Act, a post-Watergate law, to declare a national emergency to enable the federal government to respond quickly to a crisis. But Mr. Trump has already invoked this power much more frequently than his predecessors and, experts say, for situations that do not qualify as true emergencies....
On average — between Ronald Reagan’s inauguration in January 1981 and the start of Mr. Trump’s second term this year — presidents declared about seven national emergencies per four-year term, according to a Times analysis of data from the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan think tank focused on democracy. Mr. Trump declared that many in his first month back in office....
The president has used two major categories of emergency, encompassing four separate declarations, to justify the sweeping tariffs he has imposed on most of the United States’s trading partners...
Mr. Trump claimed that an “invasion” of “illegal aliens” constituted a national emergency along the U.S.-Mexico border. ...he used the border emergency to give the military specific responsibility for immigration enforcement. ...
The most recent category is a trade imbalance. In an April executive order declaring a national emergency, Mr. Trump cast “large and persistent annual U.S. goods trade deficits” as a national security and economic threat...But the result, at least so far, has been a landscape of punishing tariff rates — starting at 10 percent and going as high as 50 percent — that have taken effect for more than 90 trading partners.
Mr. Trump has declared three other emergencies in pursuit of his policy goals. The first, among those declared the day he retook office, is a national energy emergency...Experts soon said no such emergency exists (the United States produces more oil and gas than any other country). ... it was being used to skirt environmental and other regulations. And the administration has withdrawn federal support for projects to boost renewable energy, like wind and solar.... [end quote]
The direct impacts on the Macro economy have been:
1. Tariffs which will increase inflation.
2. Removal of immigrant labor which will cause inflation in food prices and services that are largely performed by immigrants, such as construction and elder care.
3. Meddling in the energy markets.
This doesn't count Trump's meddling in specific companies without the aegis of an emergency. Not to mention many actions which are straight out of the authoritarian playbook.
It wouldn't surprise me if Trump were to invoke an emergency to demand that the Federal Reserve implement a new round of Quantitative Easing to lower long-term interest rates even though inflation is rising and the deficit is predicted to grow dramatically in the future.
Wendy
