Foreign Relations & International Law

Lawfare Daily: Trump’s Tariffs and the Law

Scott R. Anderson, Kathleen Claussen, Peter E. Harrell, Jen Patja
Thursday, February 27, 2025, 8:00 AM
What legal authority does President Trump have to impose tariffs?
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For today’s episode, Lawfare Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson sat down with Kathleen Claussen, an expert in international economic law and professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, and Lawfare Contributing Editor Peter Harrell, a non-resident senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, to discuss the ambitious set of tariffs the Trump administration has imposed or threatened over its first month in office.

They discussed the tariffs Trump has imposed so far, what seems to be coming over the horizon, and how they all line up with the legal authorities he is using to impose them.

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Foreign Relations & International Law
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Scott R. Anderson

Scott R. Anderson

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Scott R. Anderson is a fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution and a Senior Fellow in the National Security Law Program at Columbia Law School. He previously served as an Attorney-Adviser in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State and as the legal advisor for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq.
Kathleen Claussen

Kathleen Claussen

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Kathleen Claussen is Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center. Prior to joining academia, she was Associate General Counsel at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. She was previously Legal Counsel at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague. Professor Claussen’s primary teaching areas and research interests include: international economic law, dispute settlement & procedure, and international security and cybersecurity issues. Her work has been published in the Yale Law Journal, the Yale Journal of International Law, the American Journal of International Law Unbound, among others.
Peter E. Harrell

Peter E. Harrell

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Peter E. Harrell is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security, where his research focuses on the intersection of international economics and U.S. national security. He also maintains a law practice advising companies on sanctions compliance and other areas of national security law. Harrell previously served at the State Department from 2009-2014.
Jen Patja

Jen Patja

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Jen Patja is the editor and producer of the Lawfare Podcast and Rational Security. She currently serves as the Co-Executive Director of Virginia Civics, a nonprofit organization that empowers the next generation of leaders in Virginia by promoting constitutional literacy, critical thinking, and civic engagement. She is the former Deputy Director of the Robert H. Smith Center for the Constitution at James Madison's Montpelier and has been a freelance editor for over 20 years.
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