And grab a lot more power for himself:
Axios has obtained a leaked draft of a Trump administration bill — ordered by the president himself — that would declare America’s abandonment of fundamental World Trade Organization rules.
Why it matters: The draft legislation is stunning. The bill essentially provides Trump a license to raise U.S. tariffs at will, without congressional consent and international rules be damned.
The details: The bill, titled the “United States Fair and Reciprocal Tariff Act,” would give Trump unilateral power to ignore the two most basic principles of the WTO and negotiate one-on-one with any country:
- The “Most Favored Nation” (MFN) principle that countries can’t set different tariff rates for different countries outside of free trade agreements;
- “Bound tariff rates” — the tariff ceilings that each WTO country has already agreed to in previous negotiations.
“It would be the equivalent of walking away from the WTO and our commitments there without us actually notifying our withdrawal,” said a source familiar with the bill.
- “The good news is Congress would never give this authority to the president,” the source added, describing the bill as “insane.”
- “It’s not implementable at the border,” given it would create potentially tens of thousands of new tariff rates on products. “And it would completely remove us from the set of global trade rules.”
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Commerce Secretary, and corrupt Capitalist oligarch, Wilbur Ross said this morning that Trump would not surrender on trade and tariffs even if his actions caused the stock market to crash.
The oligarchs will stand for almost anything except somebody fooling around with their money.
Note: The WTO is in need of dramatic reform. The organization does nothing to help workers even as it works overtime to enrich the already wealthy.
From the you can’t make this shit up file: “United States Fair and Reciprocal Tariff Act,” also known as the US FART Act!
The Authorization to Use Military Force Act. What could possibly go wrong?