President Donald Trump’s crime emergency in Washington, DC, allowed him to fill the nation’s capital with federal law enforcement and the National Guard and bring crime down to an actual historic low. But that was far from his only emergency declaration since returning to the White House in January – and the left is outraged, though not surprised, that he would use such an excuse to snatch power from thin air. Or so they say. The president’s political opponents – officials and talking heads alike – rail at him, some even invoking the name of Nazis in comparison. But his emergencies aren’t so different from – or even more numerous than – those who came before.
The National Emergencies Act (NEA) of 1976 canceled all ongoing emergencies at the time and formalized the rules for those to come. By this act, the president must declare a national emergency by issuing a proclamation, transmitting it to Congress, and publishing it in the Federal Register. In short, an emergency exists because the president says so. It doesn’t grant new powers, but it does open up access to more than 130 existing statutory authorities previously delegated to the executive by Congress. Since its passage, every president has used it at least once except for Gerald Ford, who left office in January of 1977.
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President Trump is certainly no stranger to this authority – much to the chagrin of Democrats, many of whom claim he’s abusing the power. But these accusations ignore a couple of important points: First, just because one doesn’t like the declaration of an emergency doesn’t mean it isn’t a legitimate emergency. When President Trump declared his emergency at the southern border, for example, illegal immigration and the trafficking of both drugs and people were at a historic high. Second, while the NEA clearly lays the authority to declare emergencies on the president, it also establishes a way out, should the power ever be abused.
Lawmakers can pass a joint resolution by simple majority in both houses, but it then has to be signed into law by the president. So, should the chief executive refuse to end an emergency, a veto-proof majority in Congress must agree – and that’s a much taller order. A congressional report from February of this year explains that, since the first emergency under the NEA, lawmakers have considered a total of 16 termination resolutions – and just one of the 13 that were acted on was then signed into law.
So, is President Trump really breaking new ground here by using national emergencies as an excuse to throw his weight around? Since January 2025, he has declared a total of nine national emergencies, covering border security (including the flow of both illegal immigrants and drugs over the southern border), trade imbalances with other nations, and sanctions against the International Criminal Court. Then there’s his localized crime emergency declaration for DC specifically. He had another nine in his first term, with those regarding the southern border being essentially what he re-instated in 2025 after his successor, Joe Biden, canceled them. Of course, the 2020 COVID-19 Pandemic emergency fell in Trump’s first term as well.
Speaking of Biden, he also initiated nine national emergencies in his single term as president – eight of which are still in effect. Much like Trump’s, they mostly dealt with international sanctions and the flow of drugs.
Going even farther back, Barack Obama issued 11 national emergencies in order to impose international sanctions, mostly in Africa, and another declaring a health emergency regarding the 2009 H1N1 Pandemic. George W. Bush also issued a dozen emergency declarations during his two terms – again, mostly for the sake of imposing international sanctions. His targets were, perhaps unsurprisingly, primarily Middle Eastern nations supporting terrorist groups.
We’re still in the state of emergency declared November 14, 1979, by Jimmy Carter, which was used to freeze Iranian assets as part of the American response to the hostage crisis. The History Channel actually opened an article in May with this clever bit: “Is the United States currently experiencing a national emergency? No matter when you read this, the answer is ‘yes.’” In fact, there are a total of 49 active national emergencies, representing every single presidential administration since Carter’s. In other words, There’s nothing really special about President Trump’s current emergencies other than the fact that he’s the sitting president and his political opponents seem to be especially rabid against him.