Today, Michael McConnell writes that the Trump administration lacks constitutional justification to impose tariffs via claims of emergency authority; Ross Levine and Amit Seru advocate for a better balance between congressional control and regulatory agency oversight in the US financial system; and Barry Strauss suggests that America may be on the verge of a national renewal grounded in the best of the western tradition in his speech accepting the prestigious Bradley Prize.
Law, Trade, and Regulation
In a guest opinion essay for The New York Times, Senior Fellow and Stanford Law School professor Michael McConnell asks, “Are President Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs on, or are they off? And, more important, will legal challenges to these levies put the brakes on the seizure by presidents of both parties of ever-increasing unilateral power?” After reviewing relevant statutes and 20th century legal history, McConnell concludes that the president currently lacks the power to impose tariffs under emergency authorities. For Trump to proceed with emergency tariffs, Congress would need to expressly grant him new authority. As McConnell concludes, “Any other interpretation would allow the president to ignore the limiting terms of the statute if he finds it inconvenient. That would not be the constitutional republic the founders designed.” Read more here. (Subscription required.)
In a commentary column for Barron’s, Ross Levine and Amit Seru argue that the “Trump administration’s push to assert presidential control over independent financial regulators should jolt the nation.” At the same time, the scholars maintain that current financial regulations require congressional updates to increase oversight, decrease systemic risk, and minimize inappropriate industry influence. “Get the governance of finance wrong,” write Seru and Levine, “and we’ll wake up in a country where capital flows not to the best ideas, but to the best connected.” To avoid this outcome, the authors stress the importance of Congress establishing “monitorable goals” and a “proper regulatory structure,” wherein “regulators [are] multi-member commissions with staggered terms and limited, specified grounds for removal.” Read more here.
Revitalizing American Institutions
In his acceptance speech at the 21st Bradley Prize Ceremony in Washington, DC, Senior Fellow Barry Strauss argues that, despite the challenges of illiberalism and political division in recent years and their negative impacts on universities in particular, “we are entering an era of national renewal.” Strauss suggests that, like Athens and Jerusalem in years past, American “society too will prove resilient if it returns to its roots in the western tradition and the history of the American republic, starting with its founding documents, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.” At the conclusion of his remarks, Strauss challenged American higher education “to return to a curriculum that educates for greatness. For citizenship. For freedom. And for America.” Watch or read the speech here.
Energy and the Environment
Experts on energy and environmental policy, journalists, advocates, and Native American tribal leaders gathered at the Hoover Institution on May 13 to consider how environmental policies based more on markets than mandates can drive natural resource conservation and responsible economic growth. Attendees heard various views on how to pivot away from carbon-emitting energy sources, how markets can be unleashed to preserve the natural realm, as well as arguments that Uncle Sam needs to do a better job generating economic returns from its vast portfolio of federal lands. The Markets vs. Mandates research program at Hoover is directed by Senior Fellows Terry L. Anderson and Dominic Parker. Parker said the purpose of the conference was to explore if, when, and how “markets can offer more effective alternatives to the old environmentalist playbook of ‘mandate, regulate, and litigate’.” Read more here.
Determining America’s Role in the World
For the latest Battlegrounds, Thórdís Kolbrún Reykfjörd Gylfadóttir, Iceland’s former minister of foreign affairs, and Hoover Senior Fellow H.R. McMaster discuss the evolving US-Iceland relationship, Icelandic-European relations, and the continued security challenges of the Arctic. Appointed as the special envoy of Council of Europe secretary general on the situation of children of Ukraine, Gylfadóttir provides an insight into her vital role in raising awareness of the challenges facing the children of Ukraine, the driving forces behind Putin’s behavior, and why sustained support for Ukraine from Europe and the United States is critical. Gylfadóttir also discusses the importance of the transatlantic NATO relationship in the fight against Russia, China, North Korea and Iran, as well as current priorities for the US-Iceland relationship and why Americans should visit Iceland. Watch here.
On June 4, Hoover Institution Director and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice joined Fox & Friends to discuss Ukraine's targeting of a key bridge connecting Russia and Crimea, the latest on the push for an Iran nuclear plan, and antisemitism on college campuses. Rice suggests that the recent successful Ukrainian drone attack on strategic air assets deep inside Russian territory shows that with “just with a little bit of help, the Ukrainians can make Vladimir Putin pay for his aggression.” On Iran, Rice stresses that the regime there fundamentally has only one decision maker (the Ayatollah), and that US policy must aim to deny Iran the ability to enrich uranium at all. “The Iranians are in a weakened position right now,” Rice analyzes, and that makes it an ideal time for a “maximalist” US approach to negotiations. Watch here.
Featured Hoover Publication
A new student essay from the Hoover History Lab argues that “Lebanon possesses the rare opportunity to marginalize Hezbollah [and restore] state sovereignty amid the group’s military and political decline following its conflict with Israel.” Author Katharine Sorensen suggests that Saudi Arabia should play a key role, via “targeted economic aid, military support, and political cooperation, conditioned on major Lebanese reforms,” in stabilizing this troubled state. Read more here.
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