Implausible Deniability
Trump tryis to slip the bonds of annoying law
Today I posted a piece on Notes from the Miller Center, the blog of UVA’s Miller Center of Public Affairs. It derives a general take on the President’s bargaining strategy from his pursuit of complete discretion over the levying of tariffs. The strategy assumes a world of adversaries and the illusionary nature of trust, where bullying based on power, feeding on the cowering of counterparties, produces the best results. As I did in my Lawfare post on Learning Resources, the Supreme Court’s tariff decision, I fear that, if the courts obstruct the maximized threatening that the President seeks in wielding economic power, he will find the exercise of military force more attractive. This is an incomplete and highly contingent account of how we found ourselves in the present war.
The blog post is here:
