Voters deserve to know how and intend to fix the global trade system. Its crowning achievements—the Bretton Woods monetary management system and the World Trade Organization—are in disrepair. China has ignored the rules of the road, and the U.S. has embraced tariffs and industrial policy. Each action has undermined the postwar economic order.
Yet thanks to the Supreme Court, lawmakers now have an extra tool to combat ineffective and often-counterproductive trade policy. In Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (2024) the high court overturned Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council (1984), which instructed judges to defer to agency interpretations of vague laws as long as they were “reasonable.” Loper Bright gives Congress—which has constitutional authority over trade policy—the power to temper the unilateral trade actions of the executive branch.
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