Trump Has Issued 8 “National Emergencies” Since Reentering the White House

A new report details how President Donald Trump has issued more national emergency declarations than any other modern-day president during their first 100 days in office, showcasing the lengths he has gone to bypass Congress and enact policy through unilateral decrees.

According to reporting from Axios, which relied on data collected by the Brennan Center for Justice, Trump has declared eight national emergencies since assuming office in mid-January. For comparison, President Joe Biden issued two national emergency declarations during his first 100 days in office, and President Barack Obama issued none within that time frame in either of his terms in office.

Trump has declared 21 national emergencies across his two terms so far — more than any other president this century, as the eight he announced this year, combined with the 13 he declared during his first four-year term, amount to 35 percent of all national emergencies declared by the four presidents since 2001. The next highest number of emergencies declared came from former President George W. Bush, who issued 16 such orders over the course of eight full years in office.

National emergencies allow presidents to temporarily enhance their executive powers without congressional approval. While Trump is not the first president to declare national emergencies to expand his authority, legal scholars say that he is exploiting such declarations to enact his far right agenda.

“You have this dynamic of presidents increasingly relying on emergency powers to do things that are not directly related to any actual emergency in the traditional understanding of that term,” said Elena Chachko, assistant professor at Berkeley Law School, speaking to Vox about the issue.

The National Emergencies Act of 1976 established more than 120 powers that presidents can use when declaring emergencies. Meant to empower the executive branch to respond to events that required faster response times than allowed for by the ordinary legislative process, the law also originally included a “legislative veto” on emergency decrees, to ensure presidents couldn’t abuse the law.

That veto, which only required a simple majority vote under the law, was deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1983. To overturn a presidential national emergency order today would require the passage of a law, with a veto-proof two-thirds support in both houses of Congress.

Trump has issued national emergencies related to fossil fuel energy production, mineral drilling, additional militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border, and the country’s economy, using the latter of those declarations to justify imposing tariffs on nearly every country on the globe. Despite some abuses of the law by multiple presidents, Trump’s actions have been much more numerous and noticeable, according to Elizabeth Goitein, senior director of the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program.

“This is not the first time a president has used emergency declarations to push policy goals despite the lack of a sudden crisis. … Trump’s imposition of tariffs, however, takes misuse of this law to a new level,” Goitein said in a recent op-ed.

Goitein added:

Emergency powers are designed to let a president respond swiftly to sudden, unforeseen crises that Congress cannot act quickly or flexibly enough to address. … Emergency powers are not meant to solve long-standing problems, no matter how serious those problems may be. Nor are they intended to give a president the ability to bypass Congress and act as an all-powerful policymaker.

Goitein pointed out that the third branch of government, the judiciary, could play a role in limiting Trump’s orders by finding them unconstitutional or irrational.

This week, the state of California announced that it would indeed sue Trump over his use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). After declaring a national emergency over the state of the U.S. economy, Trump imposed tariffs on imports from scores of countries, justifying doing so by dubiously claiming they would lead to negotiations on trade and somehow bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S.

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-California) said that Trump is misusing his national emergency declaration powers.

“Donald Trump does not have the authority to unilaterally impose the largest tax hike of our lifetime with his destructive tariffs,” Newsom said on Wednesday. “We’re taking him to court.”