The ghost of Ronald Reagan has spooked Trump over tariffs
Sidney Blumenthal
The president is lashing out before the supreme court’s impending decision on his absurd policy
Sun 2 Nov 2025 14.00 GMT
Halloween came early for Donald Trump. Ronald Reagan spooked him. Trump had a startled reaction to the TV ad that appeared during the first game of the World Series, placed by the provincial government of Ontario, featuring excerpts from President Reagan’s radio talk in April 1987 in which he explained the danger of trade wars. “Their Advertisement was to be taken down, IMMEDIATELY, but they let it run last night during the World Series, knowing that it was a FRAUD,” Trump posted ([url]https://www.npr.org/2025/10/25/g-s1-95116/trump-canada-anti-tariffs-ad-import-tax[/url]). It was, he falsely claimed, a “serious misrepresentation of the facts, and hostile act”. In retaliation, he slapped an additional 10% tariff ([url]https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/25/trump-tariffs-canada-ronald-reagan[/url]) on Canada.
Trump was apparently horrified at the sudden presence of the ghost of conservatism past, who had kept the outlandish bounder at arm’s length and whom Trump regarded warily if not nervously. Reagan was the original, bigger and more successful performer, whose appeal was as the harbinger of morning in America, not the grim reaper of a zombie nightfall. Canada is being punished for Trump’s fright.
Trump seemingly fears Reagan’s image might be taken as a warning to the supreme court to rule against him in the impending case of Trump v VOS, in which the basis of his tariff regime is at stake. “Canada is trying to illegally influence the United States Supreme Court in one of the most important rulings in the history of our Country,” Trump claimed ([url]https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115428874684902595[/url]).
Two courts have already ruled against Trump for his invocation of national security under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose tariffs on whomever he wishes without the approval of the Congress. In late May, the US court of international trade held that most of Trump’s tariffs were “contrary to law”. He appealed to the US court of appeals for the federal circuit, which on 29 August affirmed the CIT ruling ([url]https://abcnews.go.com/US/trumps-global-tariffs-unlawful-appeals-court/story?id=125110624[/url]). The appeals court observed that “tariffs are a core Congressional power.” The IEEPA does not explicitly grant the president the authority to impose tariffs. Even if the IEEPA were interpreted to allow tariffs, it would represent an unconstitutional delegation of Congress’s power to the president.
Twice rebuffed, Trump has appealed to the supreme court. The argument is scheduled for 5 November. Trump’s hair-trigger response to the sudden appearance of Reagan’s shade revealed his deep unease with how the court might rule. Even though the court has permitted many of his policies to proceed temporarily without legal justification through the “shadow docket”, he seems to know he might be on shaky ground here. In the tariff case, the amicus briefs against Trump were filed by some of the leading lights of the conservative legal world. Trump accused the appeals court judges ([url]https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/federal-court-trump-power-impose-tariffs-unilaterally/story?id=122290881[/url]) of “hatred” and called Leonard Leo, the co-chair of the Federalist Society, which provided Trump with the lists of nominees for judgeships, a “sleazebag ([url]https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/29/trump-goes-after-leonard-leo-and-the-federalist-society-in-fury-over-court-ruling-00375813)”[/url]. Trump is clearly afraid.
On 15 October Trump announced that he might attend the oral arguments ([url]https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/15/trump-supreme-court-tariffs-trade.html[/url]) in person, to become the first sitting president ever to witness a supreme court case. Trump apparently has no concern about tainting the perception of the court’s objectivity or legitimacy. Either the court works for him or it does not; the justices fall in line or they are among the enemies within. To Trump, the Republican court should be no different from the Department of Justice under his thumb. He evidently views the separation of powers as a personal affront, unfairly stealing from him. Everything is a zero-sum game, not just international trade. “I’m the speaker and the president,” Trump has joked ([url]https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/25/us/politics/mike-johnson-speaker-congress.html[/url]), according to the New York Times.
Trump’s appearance in the sanctum of the court would let them know who’s the real chief. Just as the attorney general, Pam Bondi, and her deputy, Todd Blanche, sat behind ([url]https://www.courthousenews.com/dems-warn-emil-bove-hearing-shows-blurring-line-between-trump-and-courts/[/url]) Emil Bove, his henchman and nominee for the federal appeals bench, faced the senators at Bove’s confirmation hearing, Trump could sit behind his solicitor general, D John Sauer, to glower at the black-robed justices. His presence would threaten to strip away the veneer of the court’s independence as well as show his distrust for his own lawyer’s ability to prevail on the merits. Whether he wins or loses the case, he has personalized it. Winning would be interpreted as a victory for intimidation; losing would be flouting him rather than ruling on the merits. Either way, he would be poison and the decision would be, as it is said in the law, the fruit of the poisonous tree.
Trump has been losing his case so far because of his transparently weak and sham argument, part economic illiteracy and part glaring cynicism, though there is a blurred line with Trump. Granting Trump his boneheaded economics, assuming he’s just a crude real estate operator who does not know the most basic things about international trade, may lend his primitivism a patina of dumb clumsy earnestness. Contrary to Trump’s stubborn ignorance, however, trade deficits are not a mercantilist zero-sum game and tariffs are not a tax on foreign countries. His complementary point that he must be able to impose universal tariffs by fiat whenever he likes without congressional authority, the only president ever ([url]https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economics/2025/how-unprecedented-are-trumps-emergency-tariffs[/url]) to grab power for himself unilaterally under the statute in its 50-year history, because of the non sequitur of fentanyl trafficking ([url]https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/02/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-imposes-tariffs-on-imports-from-canada-mexico-and-china/[/url]), is so ridiculously phoney that it colors his whole case as typically dishonest.
Trump’s snap imposition of 50% tariffs on Brazil ([url]https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/trump-brazilian-products-tariffs-bolsonaro-rcna222534[/url]) for its supreme court’s judgment convicting his ally former president Jair Bolsonaro of an attempted coup and Trump’s additional 10% tariff on Canada in his fit of pique at the Reagan TV ad may only serve to undermine his already tenuous argument that he is compelled to usurp sole power based on the IEEPA in the interest of national security. His tantrums are gifts to the opposing attorney, who may well hold them up as obvious refutations of his claims.
In advance of Trump’s date with the court he has raced around Asia tossing concessions which he hails as victories. Dropping the tariff rates for Japan ([url]https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-asia-tour-tokyo-japanese-prime-minister-meeting-sanae-takaichi/[/url]), South Korea ([url]https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly4jz9zr50o[/url]) and China ([url]https://abcnews.go.com/Business/us-china-deal-means-rare-earths-soybean-farmers/story?id=127028309[/url]), while China lifted its retaliatory threats to withhold rare earth minerals and stop purchasing American soybeans, he has to that extent reduced the harm he alone has been responsible for inflicting.
The previously perfectly submissive Republican Congress has begun to crack up in reaction to the stress that Trump’s policies have placed on the rural Republican base. In symbolic votes, five GOP senators joined Democrats to oppose Trump’s tariffs on Brazil and four voted against his tariffs on Canada. The Republicans are in an uproar ([url]https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/gop-lawmakers-push-back-trump-admin-plan-import-argentinian-beef[/url]), following American ranchers, over his approval of importation of more Argentinian beef, apparently as a favor to his rightwing ally President Javier Milei, to whom he has also authorized the payment of $20bn in support of the waning Argentinian currency. While Trump has grudgingly acknowledged that he cannot run for a third term, the Republican members of the Congress still have to face the music.
The illegality of his tariffs aside, Trump’s retreat reveals the lasting damage he has already done to the US economy, his enhancement of Chinese power, and his alienation of our allies, and it exposes his performance as a pantomime strongman on the world stage. Though some of his tariffs will be reduced, even those that remain stand at an unprecedented level in living memory.
“Consumers face an overall average effective tariff rate of 17.9%, the highest since 1934,” the Yale Budget Lab reports. For small businesses, which account for one-third of US trade, 78% expect higher costs , and, unable to absorb them, 71% anticipate needing to pass them on as price increases. The Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development projects that as a result of Trump’s tariffs the US Gross Domestic Product growth rate will fall from 2.8% in 2024 to 1.5% in 2026 – a decline of nearly half.
Sidney Blumenthal
The president is lashing out before the supreme court’s impending decision on his absurd policy
Sun 2 Nov 2025 14.00 GMT
Halloween came early for Donald Trump. Ronald Reagan spooked him. Trump had a startled reaction to the TV ad that appeared during the first game of the World Series, placed by the provincial government of Ontario, featuring excerpts from President Reagan’s radio talk in April 1987 in which he explained the danger of trade wars. “Their Advertisement was to be taken down, IMMEDIATELY, but they let it run last night during the World Series, knowing that it was a FRAUD,” Trump posted ([url]https://www.npr.org/2025/10/25/g-s1-95116/trump-canada-anti-tariffs-ad-import-tax[/url]). It was, he falsely claimed, a “serious misrepresentation of the facts, and hostile act”. In retaliation, he slapped an additional 10% tariff ([url]https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/25/trump-tariffs-canada-ronald-reagan[/url]) on Canada.
Trump was apparently horrified at the sudden presence of the ghost of conservatism past, who had kept the outlandish bounder at arm’s length and whom Trump regarded warily if not nervously. Reagan was the original, bigger and more successful performer, whose appeal was as the harbinger of morning in America, not the grim reaper of a zombie nightfall. Canada is being punished for Trump’s fright.
Trump seemingly fears Reagan’s image might be taken as a warning to the supreme court to rule against him in the impending case of Trump v VOS, in which the basis of his tariff regime is at stake. “Canada is trying to illegally influence the United States Supreme Court in one of the most important rulings in the history of our Country,” Trump claimed ([url]https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115428874684902595[/url]).
Two courts have already ruled against Trump for his invocation of national security under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose tariffs on whomever he wishes without the approval of the Congress. In late May, the US court of international trade held that most of Trump’s tariffs were “contrary to law”. He appealed to the US court of appeals for the federal circuit, which on 29 August affirmed the CIT ruling ([url]https://abcnews.go.com/US/trumps-global-tariffs-unlawful-appeals-court/story?id=125110624[/url]). The appeals court observed that “tariffs are a core Congressional power.” The IEEPA does not explicitly grant the president the authority to impose tariffs. Even if the IEEPA were interpreted to allow tariffs, it would represent an unconstitutional delegation of Congress’s power to the president.
Twice rebuffed, Trump has appealed to the supreme court. The argument is scheduled for 5 November. Trump’s hair-trigger response to the sudden appearance of Reagan’s shade revealed his deep unease with how the court might rule. Even though the court has permitted many of his policies to proceed temporarily without legal justification through the “shadow docket”, he seems to know he might be on shaky ground here. In the tariff case, the amicus briefs against Trump were filed by some of the leading lights of the conservative legal world. Trump accused the appeals court judges ([url]https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/federal-court-trump-power-impose-tariffs-unilaterally/story?id=122290881[/url]) of “hatred” and called Leonard Leo, the co-chair of the Federalist Society, which provided Trump with the lists of nominees for judgeships, a “sleazebag ([url]https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/29/trump-goes-after-leonard-leo-and-the-federalist-society-in-fury-over-court-ruling-00375813)”[/url]. Trump is clearly afraid.
On 15 October Trump announced that he might attend the oral arguments ([url]https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/15/trump-supreme-court-tariffs-trade.html[/url]) in person, to become the first sitting president ever to witness a supreme court case. Trump apparently has no concern about tainting the perception of the court’s objectivity or legitimacy. Either the court works for him or it does not; the justices fall in line or they are among the enemies within. To Trump, the Republican court should be no different from the Department of Justice under his thumb. He evidently views the separation of powers as a personal affront, unfairly stealing from him. Everything is a zero-sum game, not just international trade. “I’m the speaker and the president,” Trump has joked ([url]https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/25/us/politics/mike-johnson-speaker-congress.html[/url]), according to the New York Times.
Trump’s appearance in the sanctum of the court would let them know who’s the real chief. Just as the attorney general, Pam Bondi, and her deputy, Todd Blanche, sat behind ([url]https://www.courthousenews.com/dems-warn-emil-bove-hearing-shows-blurring-line-between-trump-and-courts/[/url]) Emil Bove, his henchman and nominee for the federal appeals bench, faced the senators at Bove’s confirmation hearing, Trump could sit behind his solicitor general, D John Sauer, to glower at the black-robed justices. His presence would threaten to strip away the veneer of the court’s independence as well as show his distrust for his own lawyer’s ability to prevail on the merits. Whether he wins or loses the case, he has personalized it. Winning would be interpreted as a victory for intimidation; losing would be flouting him rather than ruling on the merits. Either way, he would be poison and the decision would be, as it is said in the law, the fruit of the poisonous tree.
Trump has been losing his case so far because of his transparently weak and sham argument, part economic illiteracy and part glaring cynicism, though there is a blurred line with Trump. Granting Trump his boneheaded economics, assuming he’s just a crude real estate operator who does not know the most basic things about international trade, may lend his primitivism a patina of dumb clumsy earnestness. Contrary to Trump’s stubborn ignorance, however, trade deficits are not a mercantilist zero-sum game and tariffs are not a tax on foreign countries. His complementary point that he must be able to impose universal tariffs by fiat whenever he likes without congressional authority, the only president ever ([url]https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economics/2025/how-unprecedented-are-trumps-emergency-tariffs[/url]) to grab power for himself unilaterally under the statute in its 50-year history, because of the non sequitur of fentanyl trafficking ([url]https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/02/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-imposes-tariffs-on-imports-from-canada-mexico-and-china/[/url]), is so ridiculously phoney that it colors his whole case as typically dishonest.
Trump’s snap imposition of 50% tariffs on Brazil ([url]https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/trump-brazilian-products-tariffs-bolsonaro-rcna222534[/url]) for its supreme court’s judgment convicting his ally former president Jair Bolsonaro of an attempted coup and Trump’s additional 10% tariff on Canada in his fit of pique at the Reagan TV ad may only serve to undermine his already tenuous argument that he is compelled to usurp sole power based on the IEEPA in the interest of national security. His tantrums are gifts to the opposing attorney, who may well hold them up as obvious refutations of his claims.
In advance of Trump’s date with the court he has raced around Asia tossing concessions which he hails as victories. Dropping the tariff rates for Japan ([url]https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-asia-tour-tokyo-japanese-prime-minister-meeting-sanae-takaichi/[/url]), South Korea ([url]https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly4jz9zr50o[/url]) and China ([url]https://abcnews.go.com/Business/us-china-deal-means-rare-earths-soybean-farmers/story?id=127028309[/url]), while China lifted its retaliatory threats to withhold rare earth minerals and stop purchasing American soybeans, he has to that extent reduced the harm he alone has been responsible for inflicting.
The previously perfectly submissive Republican Congress has begun to crack up in reaction to the stress that Trump’s policies have placed on the rural Republican base. In symbolic votes, five GOP senators joined Democrats to oppose Trump’s tariffs on Brazil and four voted against his tariffs on Canada. The Republicans are in an uproar ([url]https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/gop-lawmakers-push-back-trump-admin-plan-import-argentinian-beef[/url]), following American ranchers, over his approval of importation of more Argentinian beef, apparently as a favor to his rightwing ally President Javier Milei, to whom he has also authorized the payment of $20bn in support of the waning Argentinian currency. While Trump has grudgingly acknowledged that he cannot run for a third term, the Republican members of the Congress still have to face the music.
The illegality of his tariffs aside, Trump’s retreat reveals the lasting damage he has already done to the US economy, his enhancement of Chinese power, and his alienation of our allies, and it exposes his performance as a pantomime strongman on the world stage. Though some of his tariffs will be reduced, even those that remain stand at an unprecedented level in living memory.
“Consumers face an overall average effective tariff rate of 17.9%, the highest since 1934,” the Yale Budget Lab reports. For small businesses, which account for one-third of US trade, 78% expect higher costs , and, unable to absorb them, 71% anticipate needing to pass them on as price increases. The Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development projects that as a result of Trump’s tariffs the US Gross Domestic Product growth rate will fall from 2.8% in 2024 to 1.5% in 2026 – a decline of nearly half.