‘If the United States were forced to pay back the trillions of dollars committed to us, America could go from strength to failure.’

The Trump administration has invented a novel theory of trade law whereby the president has unilateral authority to declare unlimited tariffs on any country for any length of time and modify them at will, based on a law that never once uses the word “tariff” and was passed by Congress to limit the president’s trade powers. The International Economic Emergency Powers Act (IEEPA) has been on the books since 1977 and has never been used to impose tariffs before Trump’s second term. Understandably, courts have been skeptical of Trump’s assumption of an enumerated power of Congress, the tariff power. One federal court has already ruled Trump’s tariffs under IEEPA illegal, and the appeals court judges seemed skeptical during oral arguments on July 31.

Solicitor General D. John Sauer, the government’s attorney in the case before the appeals court, submitted a letter on Monday to the court requesting that the president’s tariff authority under IEEPA be maintained, not because it is lawful, but because the consequences from overturning it would “have catastrophic consequences for our national security, foreign policy, and economy.”

If that sounds a little dramatic to you, that’s only scratching the surface of the hysterics in this letter.

Sauer writes, “The President believes that our country would not be able to pay back the trillions of dollars that other countries have already committed to pay, which could lead to financial ruin.” This presumably refers either to the president’s mistaken belief that foreigners pay all of U.S. tariffs, or the handshake investment deals announced with foreign leaders that largely have not begun yet, so there is really no money to pay back. What could happen is that American businesses would need to be paid back, since they are the ones from whom the illegal tariffs were taken, but no court has said that so far.

“There is no substitute for the tariffs and deals that President Trump has made,” the letter continues. “One year ago, the United States was a dead country, and now, because of the trillions of dollars being paid by countries that have so badly abused us, America is a strong, financially viable, and respected country again.” These are the words of the U.S. solicitor general submitted to a federal court, not the propaganda office of a tinpot dictator.

“If the United States were forced to pay back the trillions of dollars committed to us, America could go from strength to failure the moment such an incorrect decision took effect,” the letter says. You read that correctly: The entire success and failure of the United States depends on whether courts validate a presidential power that nobody thought existed until a few months ago.

Surely it couldn’t cause another Great Depression to say that the president doesn’t have unlimited unilateral tariff authority, right? Not according to the letter:

These deals for trillions of dollars have been reached, and other countries have committed to pay massive sums of money. If the United States were forced to unwind these historic agreements, the President believes that a forced dissolutions of the agreements could lead to a 1929-style result. In such a scenario, people would be forced from their homes, millions of jobs would be eliminated, hard-working Americans would lose their savings, and even Social Security and Medicare could be threatened. In short, the economic consequences would be ruinous, instead of unprecedented success.

Sauer’s job is to represent the president in this case, and no doubt, this is what the president believes. The rest of us — and the courts — don’t have to take it seriously.