Trump wants to declare 'national economic emergency' to justify campaign promise: report

President-elect Donald Trump is looking for a way to legally justify his plan to impose huge trade tariffs on goods coming into the United States, according to a new CNN report.

CNN cited four anonymous sources saying that Trump may be intent on declaring a "national economic emergency" in order to accomplish this goal.

"The declaration would allow Trump to construct a new tariff program by using the International Economic Emergency Powers Act, known as 'IEEPA,' which unilaterally authorizes a president to manage imports during a national emergency," CNN reported. "Trump, one of the sources noted, has a fondness for the law, since it grants wide-ranging jurisdiction over how tariffs are implemented without strict requirements to prove the tariffs are needed on national security grounds."

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CNN noted that Trump used IEEPA in 2019 "to threaten a 5% tariff on all Mexican imports that would rise to 25% if Mexico declined to take action to reduce the number of undocumented immigrants crossing the border with the United States."

The sources told CNN that no final decision has been made on whether to declare a national economic emergency.

"Trump’s team is still exploring other legal avenues to buttress the tariffs that Trump pitched on the campaign trail," CNN reported, adding that the Trump transition team had no comment on the report.

The CNN report comes one the heels of one from The Washington Post Monday that claimed Trump's aides were considering imposing the trade tariffs only on "certain sectors deemed critical to national or economic security." If so, this policy would diverge from Trump's campaign promise of "universal tariffs" of up to 20 percent on all goods imported to the United States. So far, Trump's tariff threats haven't led to any official U.S. policy.