Tariffs

Trade Wars, Meet Actual Wars

Plus: Congress shrugs, a cat cafe unionizes, and Liz Wolfe checks in, and more...

Peter Suderman | 3.5.2026 9:30 AM

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No Spain, no gain? It was probably inevitable that President Donald Trump's trade war would eventually get mixed up in his actual war. 

Earlier this week, Spanish officials said they would prohibit American forces from using joint bases for war operations, unless those activities were covered by the United Nations Charter. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said his country would not "be complicit in something that is bad for the world," the Associated Press reports. 

On Tuesday, Trump declared that he intended to "cut off all trade with Spain." 

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You might wonder: What legal authority does Trump have to unilaterally impose these sorts of revenge tariffs? After all, the Supreme Court ruled not that long ago that the authority Trump had been using to unilaterally impose tariffs based on his whims was unconstitutional. You might as well ask: On what legal authority did Trump launch a war against Iran? In theory, under the Constitution, Congress is supposed to authorize both tariffs and wars. In practice, they, uh, don't. 

Trump just does things, and the annoying constitutional worrywarts can figure it out later. (I say this as an annoying........

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