Broken Treaties, Broken Government

• On July 31, 2003, Congress passed a US-Singapore free trade agreement.
  Donald Trump just broke it.
   
• On July 31, 2003, Congress passed a US-Chile free trade agreement.
  Donald Trump just broke it.
   
• On July 15, 2004, Congress passed a US-Australia free trade agreement.
  Donald Trump just broke it.
   
• On July 21, 2004, Congress passed a US-Morocco free trade agreement.
  Donald Trump just broke it.
   
• On July 28, 2005, Congress passed a free trade agreement with Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic.
  Donald Trump just broke it.
   
• On December 13, 2005, Congress passed a US-Bahrain free trade agreement.
  Donald Trump just broke it.
   
• On September 19, 2005, Congress passed a US-Oman free trade agreement.
  Donald Trump just broke it.
   
• On December 4, 2007, Congress passed a US-Peru free trade agreement.
  Donald Trump just broke it.
   
• On October 12, 2011, Congress passed a US-Panama free trade agreement.
  Donald Trump just broke it.
   
• On October 12, 2011, Congress passed a US-South Korea free trade agreement.
  Donald Trump just broke it.
   
• On October 12, 2011, Congress passed a US-Colombia free trade agreement.
  Donald Trump just broke it.
   
• And on January 16, 2020, Congress passed Donald Trump’s USMCA, a free trade agreement with Mexico and Canada.
  Donald Trump just broke his own four year-old trade agreement.

The website of the United States Trade Representative still touts these free trade agreements. Don’t be surprised if it gets taken down.

When did it become okay for a president to break treaties lawfully passed by Congress?

President Trump is relying on the 1977 International Economic Emergency Powers Act (IEEPA), which empowers the president to act in cases of “unusual and extraordinary threat.” Can anyone argue with a straight face and a sound mind that the United States faces an unusual or extraordinary threat from literally every country on Earth?

And what does it mean that President Trump has abused the IEEPA and has violated a dozen or more congressionally approved treaties? Hint: Republicans had better hold control of Congress after the 2026 mid-term election.

“Just trust President Trump to run the global economy” we were told today by the Secretary of the Treasury.

Really? That’s how our constitutional order works? Elect a president and then just trust him no matter what he does?

Um, no. That’s not how it works. That’s not how the Executive Branch works, and it’s certainly not how the Legislative Branch works.
 
If the American constitutional order ultimately crashes and burns, this will have been a major step toward its destruction, and congressional Republicans will be to blame.