L'etat, c'est moi

 The United States constitution specifically allows for tariffs on imported good and commodities.It just as specifically assigns that power to the Congress of the United States, the United States Senate and the House or Representatives. These bodies have delegated certain economic powers to the executive branch, including the power to impose tariffs in circumstances where economic circumstances would affect American national security.

This weekend, President Trump announced his intention to increase tariffs on products imported from Canada by 10%. Canada has not done anything in the past four days to affect the strategic situation of the United States; we have committed no unfriendly acts, have not dropped the tariffs we agreed to impose on Chinese electrical vehicles, have, in fact, not done anything to affect the strategic or economic situation in the United States.

The Trump administration has at least stated their grievances honestly; they don't claim Canadians have done anything that would have a material effect on their economy. Their complaint arises solely from a series of advertisements the Ford government in Ontario has run. These ads correctly point out that the Trump policy of tariffs departs from the free trade policy advocated by Ronald Reagan, which gave rise to the so-called "Washington consensus" in favour of unrestricted trade and markets. 

In other words, Donald Trump has imposed a 10% additional tax on Americans who use or depend on Canadian steel or aluminum, as well as many other products and commodities, and he has done it because an advertisement from a Canadian provincial government has offended him personally. He has imposed a tax on Americans, and said clearly he has imposed a tax on Americans, out of personal pique. In other words, he has claimed a power without much in the way of precedent: to use the authority of the United States government against a foreign government that offends him personally. 

Much of the discussion of  these actions focuses on the economics of the situation, or the reactions in both countries, which, from my limited reading of news reports, appears to me as either indifference or a resigned shrug, where Canadians have responded with dug in determination. Trump's subordinates in the government support his position, which should surprise nobody, but from my very limited scans of right wing sources, I see no evidence of real anger at the ads by the Ontario government.

From my perspective, the importance of this event  has relatively little to do with the economic outcomes, and more to do with the principle. In a democracy, and even more in a constitutional republic, political power belongs to the people as a collective, and they delegate it to legislators they choose to make laws, and an executive to carry the laws out, together with civil servants under the executive they choose. In an authoritarian state, a leader accumulates power through their own charisma, subterfuge, or by sheer bloodstained ruthlessness, and leads or dominates the people using the state as his or her instrument. In one form of government, state policy reflects the interests and the preferences of the electorate; in the other, the self expression of the leader determines the policy of the state. Louis XIV, the archetype of an absolute monarch, summed up the authoritarian proposition succinctly: "l'etat, c'est moi". If a president can enact a major economic policy based on an advertising campaign he simply doesn't like, the United States has gone a good distance down the road that ends with absolute authoritarian rule.