Trump’s tariffs are illegal. They’re also ruining my business.

Here’s what it looks like when a president wages war on private companies.

Photo Credit: U.S. Customs and Border Protection

By Kimberly from Home of the Brave

I’m a licensed customs broker and international trade specialist operating a logistics business in my home state. In layman’s terms, that means I help companies—mostly small- and medium-sized ones—navigate the hurdles of importing and exporting goods internationally.

Without a large, designated team, this isn’t an easy thing for your average company to do. There are procedures required for goods to clear customs, duties on certain types of goods, specialized forms to be completed, and more. My company takes the hassle out of all of that, handling shipments for importers into the US, processing their paperwork through the customs system, and allowing my clients to focus on doing what they do best.

Donald Trump is making all of that infinitely harder. This administration’s on-again, off-again tariff regime is leaving businesses that operate internationally with no certainty around costs and zero ability to plan for the future. And Trump is doing all of this in contravention of the plain letter of the law, which says only Congress should have the power to levy tariffs.

Trump seems to think that tariffs are a magical solution to all the country’s economic problems. He talks about them as if they are a tribute paid by foreign countries directly to the US Treasury; but that’s not how it works. When a tariff is applied, it’s paid by a US-based company at a port of entry, with the company usually then passing that expense along to the consumer. That means more money out of Americans’ pockets, and a worse business climate for American companies.

The result is that businesses like the ones I deal with everyday get screwed. These companies plan and make their orders for internationally shipped goods months in advance, so an arbitrary Trump tariff announced on 30 days’ notice makes it impossible to anticipate costs. In response, many of them have been cancelling their orders, opting to hold out until there’s (hopefully) more clarity on the international trade front.

Put yourself in their shoes: If you’re a small business with razor-thin margins, you aren’t equipped to eat the cost of a new $75,000 surprise invoice because of a new Trump tariff applied to your sector. So what do you do? Most business owners I work with have to raise prices, cut personnel to make up the difference, or implement a hiring freeze. Either way, it’s bad for the company, bad for the consumer, and bad for the economy.

For this exact reason, the power to levy tariffs was always understood as being the purview of the US Congress, with a mandatory 90-day waiting period in force so that businesses could adjust operations and provide feedback. Now that’s all gone. It’s as if Trump simply waves a magic wand, and boom—a new tariff is applied.

This is a massive failure on the part of Congress. Something that everyone in my line of work knows: Article I, Section 9, Clause 5 of the US Constitution plainly prohibits taxes on goods exported from any state. Tariff authority belongs solely to the legislature under Article I, Section 8. Allowing the president to wield powers never granted to the office is not merely a technical breach—it is a desecration of the Constitution itself, enabled by the first branch of government.

Alexander Hamilton foresaw this danger. In Federalist No. 33 he warned: “If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people, whose creature it is, must appeal to the standard they have formed, and take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution.”

That “standard” is the Constitution. And Congress—not the courts, not the public, not the executive—is the first line of defense. James Madison explained the balance in Federalist No. 51: “You must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”

Today’s Congress seems unwilling to do either. Too many lawmakers treat their oath as a box to be checked on swearing-in day, then forgotten when constitutional duty collides with political convenience. The result is something I’m now forced to live with, day in and day out: Trump acts arbitrarily, with reckless abandon for the actual consequences of his policies. Congress stands idly by and does nothing. And American businesses are left holding the bag.

This is an unacceptable failure of leadership. My business, and those that I deal with every day, always took it on good faith that we would at least have the ability to operate in a business climate with a fundamental level of stability and predictability, grounded in the rule of law and America’s constitutional system. Now all that’s gone, and what we’re left with is a lawless presidency, a feckless Congress, and a private sector that’s being forced to fly blind.

For Congress, the oath of office was never meant to be easy. Standing up to domestic threats to the Constitution—even when they come from the White House—was never supposed to be popular. As Federalist No. 57 reminds us, “The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society.”

That virtue is what the American people expect. That courage is what history demands. And it is exactly what we are missing in this moment.

Kimberly runs a customs brokerage and is a participant in Home of the Brave, a new initiative highlighting the harms of Donald Trump’s second term.