Three cases that show how Congress has yielded its authority before President Donald Trump | Political univision news

In his six months of government, President Donald Trump has been usurping functions that are exclusive to Congress and skipping laws and controls established by the Legislative Power to guarantee the balance of powers with an aggressiveness not seen in recent decades.

Therefore, when on July 4, the President of the House of Representatives, Republican Mike Johnson, gave the deck of legislative command to Trump and said: “I want him to have it”, when he was preparing to sign the law of expenses and taxes newly approved, many saw in the gesture a symbolic transfer of power of an obedient congress to the White House.

Trump had just seen his so -called ‘great and beautiful law’ approved (official name that the congressmen put to the text to use the way the president referred to her) and days later he managed to gradually reversed about $ 9,000 million in expenses that had already been approved with bipartisan agreements.

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All presidents aspire that their political agendas have the support of the banks of their parties in Congress, especially if, as is the temporary case of the Republicans, they control most in the cameras.

But they always run into internal resistances of legislators who, or do not share any of those presidential priorities, or defend with zeal the quota of power that was assigned by the creators of the Constitution, in which this branch of power is the first in order of creation. That as a reflection of the desire to avoid an “imperial presidency” that reproduced the vices of the concentration of power they saw in the British monarchy of which they had become independent.

With Trump’s return to the White House in January, the Republicans who control the House of Representatives and the Senate have shown an unusual willingness to give the president what he asks regardless of the potential risk for themselves, their voters and the power of the Congress.

Since the confirmation of controversial candidates for federal positions (the most recent his ex -abogenous Emil Bove as judge of appeals), the approval of laws that some Republicans considered injuries to their voters (such as objections to the cuts in Medicaid) or allowing the closure of independent agencies expressly protected by law (such as USAID or VOA), Congress has allowed him to do what he wants.

In its article I, Section 8, the Constitution indicates: “Congress will have the power to establish and raise taxes, rights, contributions and special taxes.” However, in 1934, in order to revitalize world trade in the midst of the Great Depression, Congress granted the Executive Power the power to negotiate tariff reductions within the pre -approved levels through the Law of Reciprocal Commercial Agreements.

Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first president to use it to negotiate bilateral trade agreements without the mediation of Congress. Several of the United States agreements with other countries only needed the final approval, without modifications, of the Legislative.

In 1962, President John F. Kennedy promulgated the Commercial Expansion Law, which allows him to adjust tariffs based on national security threats. That is the authority under which President Trump imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum.

But some Republicans have questioned, without success, the use of economic emergency as an argument for the aggressive policy of tariffs.

Senator Rand Paul tried to end Trump’s economic emergency declaration, with the argument that tariffs are clearly taxes, and that the Constitution grants Congress the power to impose them.

“The Constitution does not allow us to give our power (…) we cannot simply say: ‘Take, Mr. President, Take it,” Paul said when presenting a resolution that went through narrow margin in the Senate, but that the representatives did not come to consider.

With the argument of reducing the bureaucracy and the associated cost (what the president’s followers call the ‘deep state’) the Trump government embarked from the first day on an aggressive reform and elimination of government agencies, most of which were created by law by Congress so that they were independent of the Executive.

The main affected was the Federal Government Humanitarian Assistance Agency, Usaid (until then the world’s largest help office) that was dismantled in a matter of weeks and its budget and programs left suspending leaving thousands of people affected throughout the world.

Another example is the voice of America, the broadcasting system financed by the State that distributed information to the entire world in several languages, and that, despite being protected by legal barriers that isolated it from the Executive, has been intervened and its operations left suspended by the White House.

The president has ordered the dismissal of several general inspectors of government secretariats, although they are supposed to be legally protected from such actions to avoid impediments to their work to supervise the work of public offices.

In those and other cases, critics of presidential actions have stressed that these are agencies and officials protected by laws of Congress specially designed for that purpose.

However, republican majorities in Congress have attended impassively to this dismantling without resistance or even demand that the Executive comply with legal procedures, letting the only ones have tried to moderate the actions of the White House.

The Congress was recently expressed by complying with Trump’s request to terminate about 9,000 million dollars that legislators had approved, but that the administration wanted to eliminate, including funds for public broadcasting and foreign aid.

It was an unusual presidential request, a challenge to the legislative power on the budget that has not been used in decades. The pressure on the Republicans is taking its toll.

“We are legislators. We should be legislating,” said Senator Lisa Murkowksi, Republican by Alaska, refusing to support the requirement of the White House to withdraw funds to the national public radio and other entities.

“What we are receiving now is a white house directive: ‘This is the priority. We want them to fulfill it. We will give you another round. I do not accept it.”

During Trump’s first government, Republicans, scared by Trump’s furious disapproval tweets, maintained their criticism in private.

Those who raised the voice, such as Liz Cheney, of Wyoming, in the House of Representatives, and Mitt Romney, of Utah, in the Senate, among others, are no longer in the Capitol.

Now, the Congress is full of Republicans who reached power under the movement ‘Make America Great Again’ of Trump and owe his ascent to the president himself. Many emulate the presidential style.

A new generation of Republican leaders, Johnson in the House of Representatives and the leader of the majority of the Senate, John Thune, has approached Trump. They are using the power of the presidency of large and small ways: to negotiate agreements, encourage lawmakers to align, even to establish calendars.

The result is a perceptible imbalance of power: the Executive exercises greater authority, while the legislature weakens.

In the process, the Judiciary has been forced to assume the heavy burden of pesos and counterweights, while the courts process hundreds of lawsuits for the actions of the administration presented by those who believe that Congress is not exercising effective counterweight.

“The genius of our Constitution lies in the separation of powers,” said Democratic Representative Nancy Pelosi, from California, former president of the House of Representatives, in an interview in the ‘Mornings With Zerlina’ program of Siriusxm.

But facing Trump has its costs, as Senator Thom Tillis, Republican for North Carolina, experienced, had to endure criticism from Trump for his opposition to the bill of tax cuts and spending, especially his concern about the drastic cuts to hospitals.

With the recurring threat against legislators who considers that they do not accompany their priorities, the president threatened to campaign against him in primary elections. Shortly after, Tillis announced that he would not seek re -election in 2026.

Senator Susan Collins, Republican for Maine, voted against that bill and the termination package, despite Trump’s threat to campaign against any dissident.

At least one Republican in the lower house, the representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, remains impassive. Recently, he proposed legislation to force the government to publish the archives of Jeffrey Epstein, something that the president had been reluctant to do.