Trump Abuses Emergency Powers To Bypass Congress, Buy Votes

Donald Trump has consistently abused the powers conferred on him and the government by declaring an emergency of one sort or another. The President has declared a national emergency to implement steel and aluminum tariffs and tariffs on Chinese goods. He has declared a national emergency to send American troops to the border and to, probably illegally, redirect money from funds allocated by Congress for other projects in order to build his border wall. He has declared a cybersecurity emergency so he can ban Huawei and other Chinese technologies as part of  his trade war with China. In all those cases, there was no real emergency, just one that Trump could invent in order to exercise his emergency powers and bypass the will of Congress or the normal rules and laws that applied.

In the wake of continuation of Saudi Arabia’s brutal war in Yemen and the government-ordered assassination of Jamal Kashoggi, Congress has managed to block new arms sales to Saudi Arabia. This spring, Congress also passed legislation that cut off any American assistance to Saudi Arabia in that war in Yemen. That legislation was vetoed by the President and Congress could not override the veto.

Now however, with the long-promised Jared Kushner Mideast peace plan apparently getting ready to be announced shortly, Trump believes he needs to pay off the Saudis for their support of the plan by resuming arms sales to the murderous dictatorship. As Trump proves time and again, the fact that Congress has blocked such actions means nothing to him and he has found a way to bypass Congress once again by once again invoking a fictional emergency.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo notified Congress that the administration will use a provision in the Arms Control Export Act that allows the President to bypass Congressional review of arms sales if “an emergency exists which requires the proposed sale in the national security interest of the United States”. According to Pompeo, an “an emergency exists which requires the immediate sale…in order to deter further the malign influence of the government of Iran throughout the Middle East region”, adding these arms sales “must occur as quickly as possible in order to deter further Iranian adventurism in the Gulf and throughout the Middle East”. Invoking this emergency power will allow the administration to sell $7 billion worth of arms to the Saudis with no say from Congress.

It is always hard to divine the motivations of some of the administration’s actions, usually because it is hard to figure out whether the policies are being driven by the President or one of his underlings with their own specific agenda. The recent heightening of tensions with Iran, which appears to be largely produced by American actions alone, may actually have been created as an excuse to create this so-called emergency in order to sell arms to the Saudis and guarantee support for Kushner’s peace plan. On the other hand, Trump may have bought into Bolton’s saber-rattling and then discovered it also provided nice cover for getting arms to the Saudis. Either way, both Trump and Bolton get what they want out of the situation.

Whatever the case, there is clearly no real emergency that the US or its forces face that requires us to sell $7 billion in arms to the murderous Saudi regime so they can kill more innocent families and children in Yemen. It is just another Trump abuse of emergency powers so he can bypass Congress and the rule of law.

In a similar vein, Trump also announced a $16 billion aid package for farmers who have been negatively effected by retaliation in his trade war with China. According to the Agriculture Department, the $16 billion “is in line with the estimated impacts of unjustified retaliatory tariffs on U.S. agricultural goods and other trade disruptions”. The department arrived at that $16 billion number not by looking solely at the effects since the retaliatory tariffs have been implemented but by also including estimates of what it considers unfair trade practices in prior years. The package comes on the heels of a $12 billion farm bailout last year.

According to the press reports I have seen, the $16 billion will not be part of any new appropriation from Congress but will once again rely on the existing structures that are designed to provide farm aid in emergencies. The bulk of the administration’s plan will rely on $14.5 billion in direct payments to farmers from the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC), a New Deal program that was designed to stabilize farm prices and income. The CCC will fund these payments with a loan from the US Treasury that will ultimately have to repaid by a future Congressional appropriation. Essentially, Trump is essentially trying to buy off farmers who have been adversely effected by an export and price emergency created by policies he implemented using other emergency powers.  And he has done and is going to do all that without Congressional approval.

Throughout history, we have seen plenty of wannabe dictators declare an emergency in order to implement martial law or grab other emergency powers in order to rule without restraint from law and legislature. Trump, on the other hand, does not grab total power with one big emergency. Instead, he is creating many different, more specific emergencies in order to slowly shift power away from Congress and, in some cases, the courts. While Trump’s approach to grabbing power may be different than what we are used to seeing, it does not make it any less dangerous.