Senator Paul is pushing a new measure that seeks to restrict the president’s ability to implement tariffs without congressional approval — introducing the bill during an election season that has put President Trump’s tariff expansion proposals in the spotlight. 

“Our Constitution was designed to prevent any branch from overstepping its bounds,” Dr. Paul said in a Constitution Day announcement about the bill, which is called the “No Taxation Without Representation Act.”

“Unchecked executive actions enacting tariffs tax our citizens, threaten our economy, raise prices for everyday goods, and erode the system of checks and balances that our founders so carefully crafted,” he said.

The bill seeks to “curb the President’s ability to tax Americans” by imposing tariffs without Congress’s permission, Dr. Paul’s statement said.

President Trump’s frequent chatter about expanding tariffs — including a recent Wisconsin campaign event promise to impose 100 percent tariffs on countries that are “leaving the dollar” — has directed national attention to questions about who has the authority to impose them.

The 2016 presidential election began drawing attention to America’s trade policies, as a Congressional Research Service report notes, and the topic has raised “questions about the President’s authority to act unilaterally in this area, especially his ability to impose tariffs on imported goods from certain countries.”

Although Article 1 of the Constitution gives Congress the sole ability to “lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises,” the report notes, Congress throughout the 1900s delegated some tariff powers to the executive branch. Most of the delegation provisions “require the President to make some threshold finding or determination before he may take some circumscribed trade- related action to counteract his finding,” it notes, and the president’s delegated trade powers can be challenged in court. 

While he was in office, Mr. Trump’s administration imposed “nearly $80 billion worth of new taxes on Americans by levying tariffs on thousands of products valued at approximately $380 billion in 2018 and 2019, amounting to one of the largest tax increases in decades,” the Tax Foundation estimates, noting that President Biden has kept most of those in place and even announced his own tariff hikes earlier this year.

Dr. Paul says that his bill will help restore the Founder’s intent of checks and balances to help prevent one branch of the federal government from “gaining undue control over taxation without proper oversight and representation.” 

“Our founders knew that no taxation without representation was more than just a colonial protest but a fundamental principle that should shape our nation,” he said in a video statement. “Unilaterally imposed tariffs by a president can trigger trade wars, raise prices for everyday goods, and strain relations with international partners. My bill ensures that our system of checks and balances shields the economy from impulsive or politically motivated decisions.”

Under the bill, the president must explain to Congress why a tariff is necessary, and tariffs would only be allowed if Congress approves them through a bill. Embargoes are exempt in the bill. 

“We must confront the reality that the balance of power is under threat,” Dr. Paul said. “The executive branch has grown enormously large, often unchecked by a Congress that seems to lack the ambition to fulfill its constitutional duty to serve as a counterbalance.”