CNN reports:

President Donald Trump claimed he has the “absolute right” to “order” US companies to stop doing business with China that would involve using his broad executive authority in a new and unprecedented way under a 1977 law.

On Friday, China unveiled a new round of retaliatory tariffs on about $75 billion worth of US goods, the latest escalation in an on-going trade war that’s putting a strain on the world’s two largest economies. In response, Trump wrote on Twitter later Friday: “Our great American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China including bringing …your companies HOME and making your products in the USA.”

When leaving the White House for the G7 summit in France, Trump told reporters, “I have the absolute right to do that, but we’ll see how it goes.” He later explained that he was referring to the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), and in a Friday tweet wrote: “For all of the Fake News Reporters that don’t have a clue as to what the law is relative to Presidential powers, China, etc., try looking at the Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977. Case closed!”

Trump’s latest comments again raise questions as to how far the President’s authority goes under the IEEPA. In May, Trump threatened to slap Mexico with punitive tariffs unless it slowed the passage of migrants from Central America to the US. The IEEPA, according to the Congressional Research Service, has never been invoked to impose tariffs, and Trump ultimately drew back at the last minute.

The IEEPA, passed in the wake of Watergate and Vietnam, gives Trump “broad authority to regulate a variety of economic transactions following a declaration of national emergency,” according to an analysis by the CRS. [Continue reading…]