Lies Within The Lie, Part One
Unpacking the Lies Underpinning "Liberation Day" Tariffs
“In order to be a good plaintiffs lawyer, if someone lies to you you cannot stop attacking until you have them on the ground and your boot firmly on their neck.” — What a Philadelphia trial lawyer told me early in my career.
Leading up to the President’s “Liberation Day” Press Conference, Executive Order, and corresponding Fact Sheet I had general, persistent unease about the course of this Administration, but I was still clinging to the hope that this was just an exaggerated version of the first term. Unfortunately, by the end of the President’s first full thought on April 2nd I was more than alarmed — I was filled with a sense of impending doom.
“April 2nd, 2025 will forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn, the day America’s destiny was reclaimed, and the day we began to make America wealthy again… For decades our country has been looted, pillaged, raped, and plundered by nations near and far — both friend and foe alike.” - The President of the United States, April 2, 2025.
With this introduction, the immediate visual soundbite that came to mind was President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy.” However, instead of the United States being “suddenly and deliberately attacked” by a foreign power, I felt we had just declared war on ourselves and that this day would mark a turning point in the arc of United States history that began it’s upward trajectory in the depths of Pearl Harbor’s tragedy.
My general paradigm to approaching the President’s official statements is to invert them and assume that’s the actual truth. While I don’t remember the specifics of how I reversed his statement in my head, I asked Chat to do so for purposes of this article because it’s instant, which is how I experienced it during the press conference.
Even though that was just a flash of intuition, I knew this was an economic declaration of war on every country in the world, and that it was based on a lie. It was also a surprise. I believed that every government in the world would be immediately trying to figure out not only what had just happened, but how and why.
I went to the executive order, the law, as well as trade data so that I could unpack the legal, factual and rhetorical foundations to understand it all for myself. It quickly became clear that finding just one, substantial lie would mean that the entire exercise was illegal and therefore unconstitutional. If so, the President not only broke trust with every military ally and trading partner, but eviscerated the fundamental support for our status as the world’s leading economy for over a 130 years — The Rule of Law.
If the President’s tariff actions were not justifiable under the United States Constitution they were not only illegal, but a breach of trust with the entire world — friend and foe alike. It’s not rational to trust agreement with any nation that does not honor it’s fundamental deal with its own citizens. The United States compact with its citizens is its Constitution. If our government does not honor that agreement, then what nation or company could reasonably rely on their likely much less consequential treaty, agreement or deal with the United Sates.
Trade deals and commerce are not the only things that rely on this basic trust. Military alliances require it to even a greater degree. Besides trust between friends, it is also important when dealing with foes. Facing down enemies requires credible fear that crossing a red lines will have consequences, and making peace requires trust that treaties will be honored.
Legal And Constitutional Basis
Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution gives the power over tariffs explicitly to Congress alone using the term “duties.” Therefore, in order for this President to have the power exercised, Congress would have to have given it to the President in legislation. As had become common practice this year, he used an act passed almost 50 years ago that gives the President certain powers in emergency situation — the International Economic Emergency Powers Act (1977).
There Was No Emergency
The only economic emergency on April 2, 2025 was one triggered by the President himself. The word “emergency” isn’t defined in the IEEPA. It’s also not described in the National Emergency Act. It’s both well defined in public usage and in dictionaries throughout American history, however. The pairing of “emergence” and “emergency” from my favorite English dictionary at on my bookshelf is illustrative:
There was no conceivable emergency that would trigger the powers claimed by the President. The only basis for the declared emergency were “the large and persistent trade deficit.” The word “persistent” underscores that trade deficits had not come upon us suddenly and therefore not an emergency. Exactly how persistent were the referenced trade deficits? The United States has had trade deficits every year since 1977 yet we have never fallen below 20% percentage of the world’s GDP, have been the world’s largest economy since 1890, and we even increased our lead over China between 2020 and 2024. Other, more qualified, lawyers have addressed why this was not a emergency under the law, but to anyone literate, it didn’t qualify as an emergency in everyday language either.
Tariffs Are Taxes, Not Regulations
In plain English, placing tariffs on goods is taxing them, not regulating them. That’s important because the International Economic Emergency Act Using the phrasing “regulating imports” in the title wasn’t a public relations choice, it was a legal justification. Many of the official government sources that would support that statement no longer exist, like a lot of government sources that existed prior to 2025 (e.g., IRS.gov, United States International Trade Commission, & U.S. Customs & Border Protection). Fortunately, I still have the Black’s Law Dictionary that Congressman H. Morgan Griffith gave me back when he was an ardent defender of the Constitution back in 2001. It defines tariffs, duties, and regulations as follows:
tariff, n. 1. A schedule of system of duties imposed by a government on imported or exported goods. * In the United States, tariffs are imposed on imported goods only.
duty, 4. A tax imposed on a commodity or transaction, esp. on imports; IMPOST
regulation, n. 1. The act or process or controlling by rule or restriction.
Examples of actual regulations on imports include FDA Food Safety Standards, EPA Vehicle Standards, Endangered Species Restrictions, Quarantine Regulations (USDA), and Country-of-Origin Labeling Requirements. While the Liberty Justice Center will address the legalese in their brief, taxes are not regulations in common English language.
Given just the lack of an emergency and that tariffs aren’t regulations the President’s actions, his actions were illegal. However, there are more lies to unpack in future articles. In order to for his exercise of taxation power to be justifiable, the Administration would have to overcome every single one that I lay out.