Mona Paulsen

This week, someone flippantly dismissed history, telling me it doesn’t solve “now.”

But history isn’t about searching for lost solutions. Remembering Manzanar when thinking about ICE reminds us of the danger in seeing people as enemy. To question why moments repeat, forgotten or stir up revisions.

A Durable Consumer Boycott Leaves US Booze Makers Feeling Stiffed Also: Oil surges to around $91 a barrel

Canada’s boycott of US booze began a year ago with the first round of tariffs from the Trump administration. It has proven surprisingly durable. Read more in the Canada Daily newsletter.

Unfortunately this can’t happen. The rules don’t accommodate preferential treatment.

Debunking the "Hyperglobalization" Trade Policy Myth

From the moment the Trump admin imposed tariffs on select steel and aluminium products, carving out countries and exempting products, corruption concerns existed.

They say that markets move policy. It will be years but we can imagine how investment disputes will challenge the US's industrial strategy and security-for-materials agreements. What happens when the DRC is hit with claims years from now?

www.state.gov/strategic-pa...
Exhibit A

libertyjusticecenter.org/wp-content/u...

For the executive to assert that the IEEPA tariffs are easily replaceable (or are already replaced) eliminates the legitimacy of the investigations required to use other statutory authorities. Regardless of what the executive asserts the authorities’ scope is very different.

Law is Irrelevant to the U.S. Attack on Iran And Congress is on the hook as much as the president

Congress has a constitutional responsibility to check the executive branch’s powers, from economic warfare with tariffs, kidnappings, and military strikes.

Time for Congress to take seriously legal limitations within the executive branch.

www.execfunctions.org/p/law-is-irr...

I worry about the legitimisation of these Iranian strikes through the asserted authority of the Board of Peace to usurp the role of the UN and international law.

Now is the time for governments to stand strong and clear against such currents.

While the intention was to have a meeting on children and education in time of war remains urgent, wouldn’t this be postponed owing to the strikes?

I worry about derailment of UN agencies in light of the US push for the Board.

The American-Israeli Strikes on Iran are (Again) Manifestly Illegal After weeks of threats, the United States, joined by Israel, has launched military strikes against Iran. It remains to be seen whether these strikes will be fairly limited, or are the opening of an ex...

"Whatever happens, though, one thing is clear – that this use of force by the US and Israel is manifestly illegal. It is as plain a violation of the prohibition on the use of force in Article 2(4) of the UN Charter as one could possibly have."

@ejiltalk.bsky.social

www.ejiltalk.org/the-american...

It’s an excellent reflection, one that traverses questions of AI to the supply chains that will feed off of it, and the energy supplies that will feed it.

Could?

All nascent research documents that the executive’s assertions foreign companies do not pay for the tariffs.

The major debate over major questions in the tariffs decision is only the beginning Clear Statements is a recurring series by Abbe R. Gluck on civil litigation and the modern regulatory and statutory state. The Supreme Court’s decision striking down the president’s tariffs last week ...

New @scotusblog.com by Abbe Gluck, using the USSC IEEPA case to argue the court is on the cusp of a major fight over the concept of ambiguity. www.scotusblog.com/2026/02/the-...

It occurs to me that we are about to have a very significant discussion about financial pressures on the US, and I'm not entirely clear WHO will be the decision-makers in the room. What role will the Fed Reserve have and what will be its relationship with the executive branch?

Can AOC Help Democrats Craft a Positive Trade Agenda? Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’ recent remarks at the Munich Security Conference could help show a way forward for Democrats.

If you want a distraction from Section 122 and other tariffs, and feel like speculating about the future a bit, I have a piece in the National Interest asking whether AOC's recent trade policy comments could help Democrats craft a positive trade agenda.

The key part of my analysis, though, and it deserves emphasis, is that, regardless of my assessment of what I think USTR could argue, this does not change the fundamental concern about recognising the statutory basis of these deals.

ICYMI from me: if you want to understand how USTR could argue that all trade/security deals remain in good standing even after the Supreme Court ruled the President cannot impose tariffs under IEEPA, please do take a read.

ICYMI from me: if you want to understand how USTR could argue that all trade/security deals remain in good standing even after the Supreme Court ruled the President cannot impose tariffs under IEEPA, please do take a read.

However, it does suggest that the executive branch anticipated that the deals could outlast the IEEPA reciprocity tariffs, to the extent that companies or trading partners did not challenge the underlying emergency in effect.

This post explains how the US has sought to separate the authority to negotiate agreements from the authority to impose IEEPA tariffs, in terms of statutory basis and EOs. This does not change the fundamental concern about recognising the statutory basis of these deals.

With the Supreme Court ruling (6-3) that the President lacks inherent peacetime authority to impose tariffs under IEEPA, the question is what happens to the trade/security deals (informal and formal agreements) negotiated in the shadow of the IEEPA tariffs? ielp.worldtradelaw.net/2026/02/what...

Though there are many unknowns, there is now one clear known: When Trump seeks to impose tariffs to punish another country -- for whatever reason -- it cannot be done without something more: evidence of dumping, subsidising, discrimination, or a security interest.

Not the whims of a President.

#147 in V.O.S. Selections, Inc. v. Trump (Fed. Cir., 25-1812) – CourtListener.com MODIFIED ENTRY: REPLY BRIEF FILED by Appellants Executive Office of the President, Pete R. Flores, Jamieson Greer, Howard Lutnick, Kristi Noem, Office of the United States Trade Representative, Donald...

Neal Katyal has noted that in IEEPA case DOJ said: “Nor does [122] have any obvious application here, where the concerns the President identified in declaring an emergency arise from trade deficits, which are conceptually distinct from balance-of-payments deficits"

h/t @scottlincicome.bsky.social

I think this is where politics takes over the law calculus, as governments weigh their domestic and international interests.

Of course, we need USTR to clarify how the new tariffs impact all deals, frameworks, agreements, & WTO members. Bears emphasising that it is difficult to calculate the necessity of tariffs as leverage moving forward.

I’m sure the critical minerals trade bloc is going to go super well from here on out.

It makes no sense to implement a “temporary” MFN blanket tariff *after a year* of negotiating deals to resolve trade deficits (wrong to conflate with BOP of course!). As legal challenge would take > 150 days, buys admin time & face.

Some small indication that the USTR intends (for now) to keep USMCA review intact and not fracture the agreement into two.

For now.
Or you just don’t want to rattle markets until July.
Or it means nothing.