Word: Some takes on the president's power to tell corportations what to do

NY Times -Trade and international law experts were busy reviewing the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 after Mr. Trump cited it in a tweet, proclaiming, “Case closed!”

The general conclusion was that the president may, in fact, have the authority to carry out many threats against companies doing business with China. But ordering them to leave entirely may be beyond the law’s scope.

“If he declares the requisite international economic emergency, he has broad powers, most of them sanctions against the other country,” said William A. Reinsch, an international business scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“Anything he does will be litigated, and there is disagreement about what I.E.E.P.A. permits, but I think it would allow him to block imports or exports, freeze Chinese assets, and exclude Chinese financial institutions from the U.S. financial system.”

Mr. Reinsch, a former Commerce Department official, said he did not think the act would allow Mr. Trump to order United States companies to leave China, but it might allow him to block future investments.

Judith Alison Lee, an international trade lawyer at Gibson Dunn, said that Mr. Trump’s suggestion of ordering companies to relocate from China appeared to stretch the intended boundaries of the act, but that the law was written so broadly that it could be within his power.

Ms. Lee said, “It would be hugely disruptive but, technically speaking, I think the statute gives him that authority.”

Companies would most likely challenge such an order. It is not clear how the courts might rule.

Jack L. Goldsmith, a Harvard law professor, said on Twitter that courts had tended to uphold even the broadest exercises of presidential authority under the emergency powers act.

In that case, the last bulwark against Mr. Trump would be Congress, which could terminate the national emergency with a resolution if enough Republicans and Democrats joined together to override the president’s move. That would require two-thirds of each the Senate and House.

Congress could also rewrite the law. A Congressional Research Service report this year noted that the increasingly broad and creative use of the emergency powers act could be viewed as overreach by the executive branch.