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The party would restore Congress's constitutional authority over tariffs and modernize customs and digital-trade rules for the e-commerce era and allied cooperation.
Verification Status
AI-researched, unverifiedLast Reviewed
Jul 5, 2026
Cited Sources
14
What is failing, what we would change, and the conclusion we are willing to defend.
Trade policy just had its central authority question decided and reopened in the same year. In February 2026 the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not let a president impose tariffs at all. Within hours, the administration reached for a different statute, Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, to reimpose the same 10% global tariff on a different legal basis. That authority expires on its own statutory clock on July 24, 2026, and the administration is already lining up new Section 301 investigations to take its place before the deadline hits. Three legal theories for the same tariff inside eighteen months is not stable trade policy. It is one branch of government improvising around whichever court hasn't ruled yet.
The Innovation Party's position: Congress should hold the tariff authority Article I assigns it, and the "harnessing technology" half of this plank should mean modernizing the machinery of trade enforcement and cooperation. AI-07 already covers the chip-export fight.
This isn't a proposal starting from zero. Sen. Maria Cantwell has already introduced the Trade Review Act with thirteen cosponsors, seven Republicans including Mitch McConnell and Chuck Grassley alongside six Democrats including Amy Klobuchar and Chris Coons, which does exactly this: let a tariff take effect immediately, then require a congressional vote within 60 days to keep it standing.
Enact the Trade Review Act as introduced (S.1272/H.R.2665): any duty on an imported article, across every claimed legal authority, takes effect the day it is proclaimed and lapses automatically unless Congress passes a joint resolution of approval within 60 days, with only antidumping and countervailing duties under Title VII of the Tariff Act of 1930 excluded. That scope already reaches Section 232 and Section 301 tariffs directly, closing the exact Section 122-to-Section 301 substitution the administration is currently attempting without needing a separate carve-out or exception.
Pair the now-permanent end of the de minimis exemption with mandatory CBP investment in automated, risk-based screening of low-value imports, so enforcement effort concentrates on fentanyl precursors and counterfeit shipments through risk-based screening.
Resolve digital-trade disputes generally through negotiated frameworks, the model that already produced the June 2026 EU tariff agreement, and retire unilateral tariff threats; the digital-services-tax fight specifically routes through ECON-05's multilateral, OECD-track proposal within the same process, so this platform isn't running two different mechanisms for the same dispute. Any measure that specifically targets AI-relevant compute, as January 2026's Section 232 semiconductor tariff did, routes through AI-07's tiered export framework instead.
Congress can write the rule without losing time to a race through the courts. Under the Trade Review Act, a tariff still starts on day one. What changes is whether it can still be standing a decade later with no vote ever cast on it.
Turn frustration into useful pressure.
If this position misses evidence or a lived consequence, challenge it. If it holds up, help test it locally and connect it to the issues around it.