WASHINGTON — According to the latest Bob Woodward book and last week's bombshell op-ed piece in The New York Times, the "resistance" inside the White House is quietly working to thwart President Donald Trump's most dangerous instincts on trade and other matters.
Congress? Not so much.
On Capitol Hill, where constitutional power to check the presidency lies, many lawmakers are unnerved by the Trump administration's aggressive trade moves — including tariffs on steel and aluminum, Chinese goods, and potentially autos and auto parts — as well as the impact of retaliation by trading partners on U.S. exports.
But their expressions of unease haven't been matched by substantive action. Many lawmakers fear antagonizing core Trump voters and putting their seats at risk in a primary or the midterm election, political experts say.
"I'm not sure [the revelations] change the political calculus at all for Congress," said Kellie Meiman Hock, a managing partner at McLarty Associates, an international trade consulting firm.
For now, she said, "it is unlikely that the Hill will take any action to limit presidential authority prior to the midterms, even if they disagree with the trade policy."
Trump's "America First" trade agenda was a key to his 2016 victories across the Midwest auto belt, where the flight of factory jobs has left deep scars. But it has alienated many free-trade advocates in his own party and his circle of advisers.
The Woodward book describes how Gary Cohn, the president's former chief economic adviser, quietly scuttled Trump moves to withdraw the U.S. from NAFTA and the trade deal with South Korea.
Representatives from auto states want the president to preserve NAFTA and the regional supply chains it supports, and fear the impact of a trade war on foreign automakers that export from the U.S.
At a Senate hearing last week on auto tariffs, every senator — Republican and Democrat — expressed misgivings about the White House approach on trade, which was variously described as "scattershot," unpredictable, inconsistent and vague.
Labor Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., whose state is home to Nissan, Volkswagen and General Motors plants, called the hearing to show how NAFTA benefits Tennessee and urge the U.S. and Europe to eliminate auto tariffs.
Alexander and Sen. Doug Jones, D-Ala., introduced a bill to delay Trump's threatened 25 percent tariff on imported autos and parts until the administration gets a second opinion from the International Trade Commission, an independent agency. The Commerce Department is currently investigating whether such imports are a threat to national security.
"This bipartisan legislation will hold the administration accountable by ensuring it has all of the facts about the positive impact American automakers have on their communities, regardless of where they're headquartered," Jones said in a statement. "With that information in hand, the administration could no longer make the ridiculous claim that this industry is somehow a national security threat."
Jones, whose state is home to Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai and Honda assembly plants, has also joined with two Republicans to promote a measure that would take away the Commerce Department's authority to recommend tariffs on national security grounds and give that power to the Defense Department instead.
This summer, Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and six House members, led by Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., proposed that any tariffs tied to national security be subject to congressional approval.
Congress has "authority over tariffs and taxes," John Bozzella, president of the Association of Global Automakers, testified before lawmakers last week. "You should make sure the administration is conducting itself in the way it was intended."
Red line
But there is little stomach to take back trade authority from the executive branch. Senate leaders prevented a vote on the Corker bill. Instead, the Senate made a symbolic gesture, voting 88-11 in July for a nonbinding resolution that Congress should have a role in implementing national security-designated tariffs.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, has yet to follow through on promises this summer to examine whether Congress should reclaim some of the power to impose tariffs it has delegated to the executive branch.
Meiman Hock said a Trump notice to withdraw from NAFTA or to move ahead on a bilateral Mexico deal without Canada might finally trigger congressional pushback.
But the risk of withdrawal today is higher than it has been in more than a year, she warned.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer notified Congress on Aug. 31 of the administration's intent to sign a trade deal with Mexico in 90 days, which Canada could still join.
Since the administration used fast-track authority to win congressional approval of a NAFTA rewrite, any deal would have to include all three nations, according to legal experts. Conversion to a bilateral agreement wouldn't qualify for expedited review and streamlined voting .
But few lawmakers are arguing that it would be illegal under the president's Trade Promotion Authority to fast-track a bilateral deal with Mexico.
TPA gives the executive wide latitude to negotiate a deal, with some room for Congress to interpret executive action, Meiman Hock noted.
Lighthizer, she said, carefully framed the notification letter sent to Congress in the spring of 2017 to give himself maximum flexibility. He requested negotiations with Canada and Mexico under NAFTA auspices rather than within NAFTA proper.
"TPA is essentially a gentleman's agreement between the president and the Congress," Gary Hufbauer, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, wrote in a Sept. 4 blog. "It is not an act that the courts will interpret — they will leave that task to their co-equal branches of government."
It will be up to congressional leaders, he said — House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell — to determine whether and how forcefully Congress asserts its power to check the president.