(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley is criticizing the institution where he’s served for decades for giving too much power to the office of the president. Grassley, the longest-serving Republican in Congressional history, says Congress has “violated the Constitution” by handing the White House the authority to enact crippling tariffs. President-Elect Donald Trump made global tariffs a primary focus of his campaign, and Grassley, who serves on the Senate Finance Committee, says he can do it. “I’m sorry to say that he probably does have that sort of authority based upon a couple tariffs,” Grassley says. “The only one I remember would be the 1963 tariff legislation, supposedly to be used for national security.”

During the campaign, Trump suggested he’ll sign an executive order to impose a 20-percent tax on all imports from all countries, and threatened a tax of up to 60-percent on all goods coming from China. Grassley believes the president has that power and can enact such tariffs without needing Congressional approval. “I’d rather call them countervailing duties than tariffs, but when a country goes against international trade law and subsidizes something,” Grassley says, “a president’s got the authority under this other trade bill to put on enough duties on imports to level the playing field.”

Grassley says his criticism of Congress goes back 50, even 80 years, as powers that should likely have remained under the U-S Capitol dome were shifted to the executive branch. “We have actually violated the Constitution, where it says all legislative power shall be vested in the Congress of the United States,” Grassley says, “but when you delegate too much authority for presidential action, you’re really violating that section of the code.” Recent action by the U-S Supreme Court aimed to curb the power of the executive branch, Grassley says, if that power isn’t specifically spelled out in the law. He says, “In the Supreme Court case of this year, they more or less said, ‘Congress, you aren’t doing your job, and you shouldn’t be delegating so much authority,’ and the Supreme Court’s going to be the policeman of that in the future.”

The threatened 60-percent tariff on all goods from China is particularly troubling to American companies that rely on parts from China in order to make a wide range of products, which could force a tremendous boost in prices for consumers.