WASHINGTON (November 11, 2026) — The incoming Congress can answer voters’ demand for a more affordable life by repealing President Donald Trump’s tariffs, which now cost the average American family $1,077 per year, and reclaiming the constitutional authority over tariff rates the administration bypassed through more than 50 executive decrees, according to a new report from the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI).
Authored by Ed Gresser, Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI, “End of an Error: The Future of Trade Policy After the Midterms” examines how the administration imposed the first general U.S. tariff increase since Herbert Hoover’s in 1930 without a vote of Congress; the impact these higher tariffs have had on American families, farmers, and businesses; and what lawmakers can do about it. It concludes that dismantling the tariff wall is, in legal terms, relatively easy, because it rests on legally flimsy decrees rather than durable law. Congress should thus focus first on restoring its own Constitutional authority over tariff rates and undoing the Trump administration’s tariff decrees, while beginning a longer-term discussion, leading into the 2028 presidential campaign, of the new policies that should replace it.
Since January 2025, the administration’s decrees have raised the trade-weighted U.S. tariff rate from 2.3% in 2024 to 11.0% this fall, and lifted tariff collections from $76 billion in 2024 to $265 billion in 2025. Public opinion has turned sharply. Opposition that ran 55% to 60% in early 2025 often reached 70% by late summer 2026, as Republicans, rural families, and Americans without college degrees soured on the policy.
But the deepest damage, the report argues, is constitutional. Article I gives Congress authority over tariffs and taxes, and even protectionist presidents like William McKinley, Warren Harding, and Hoover asked Congress to pass tariff laws rather than attempting to create their own tariff systems by fiat. The Trump administration instead repurposed decades-old statutes, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and Sections 122, 232, 301, and 338 of U.S. trade law, to impose tariffs by decree, issuing a new one about every two weeks. Without reform, the report warns, every future president facing congressional opposition will know he or she can do the same.
“Voters weighed the Trump tariff program in the balance and found it wanting,” said Gresser. “The new Congress doesn’t need a complicated plan to respond. It can take back its constitutional power over tariffs, repeal the decrees that are raising costs for families, farmers, and manufacturers, and start building a trade policy based on America’s real strengths instead of nostalgia for the 1890s.”
The report finds:
The report recommends that Congress repair the Constitution and restore the separation of powers, use tariff policy to make things cheaper rather than more expensive, and begin a two-year process to build consensus on a new trade agenda to replace the Trump program.
First, lawmakers should require a formal vote of approval before any president can use Sections 232, 301, or 201 to impose tariffs, require a similar vote before a president withdraws from or rewrites a congressionally approved trade agreement such as the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, and repeal outdated authorities including Sections 122 and 338. Much of this, Gresser notes, is already written into bills introduced this year by Rep. Linda Sánchez (D-Calif.) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.)
Second, Congress should repeal any Trump tariff decrees that survive court challenges, giving priority to those that have strained relations with Canada and Mexico and done disproportionate harm to rural America, and freeze the administration’s USMCA review until the next president takes office. Decisions on China tariffs should wait for the next administration so it can set a broader China strategy, ideally with allies. Congress should also review the permanent tariff code, which taxes cheap sneakers at 48% and leather dress shoes at 8.5%, and charges women nearly $3 billion a year by taxing their clothing at rates about 3 percentage points higher than men’s. The Pink Tariffs Study Act from Reps. Lizzie Fletcher (D-Texas) and Brittany Pettersen (D-Colo.) offers a starting point.
Third, policymakers should use the next two years to rethink the pessimistic premises behind a decade of trade policy, from the Biden White House’s “post-neoliberalism” to the Trump administration’s “national conservatism,” and build a confident agenda on American strengths, including $2.9 trillion in annual factory output, more than $1 trillion a year in research and development, and the world’s leading digital economy. The report calls this America’s “return to the world”: rebuilding ties with neighbors and allies, renewing trade preferences for developing countries, setting practical goals at the World Trade Organization, and leading on digital trade and artificial intelligence rules.
With more than 700 days left in Trump’s term, the report concludes, Congress may not be able to undo everything at once, but it can make the next two years a period of reform that restores the constitutional balance, shuts down as many bad policies as possible, and lays the groundwork for the next president.
Read and download the report here.
Founded in 1989, PPI is a catalyst for policy innovation and political reform based in Washington, D.C. Its mission is to create radically pragmatic ideas for moving America beyond ideological and partisan deadlock. Find an expert and learn more about PPI by visiting progressivepolicy.org. Follow us at @PPI.
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Media Contact: Ian O’Keefe – iokeefe@ppionline.org
