The jurisdiction of the president remains as one of the controversial topics in U.S. politics. In most cases, the constitution parcels out policies related to foreign matters to the legislative and the executive branches. The same law also grants the president powers to implement policies impacting some of the international issues without consulting. It would be biased, therefore, to ignore that the US presidents have more authority to pursue personal policy preferences in foreign affairs as compared to domestic matters.
Article II of the Constitution gives the US president the authority to make decisions regarding foreign affairs. The first section of this charter quotes: “The executive power shall be vested in the US president” (Law2.umkc.edu, 2019). The phrase “executive power” confirms that the president is free to exercise a set of powers other than the ones expressed in the Constitution. Kinkopf (2015) argues that presidents receive such authorities through the influence of the Unitary Executive position that allows them to perform executive functions such as pointing officers, waging war, implementing foreign policies, and communicating with foreign governing bodies. By vesting powers, therefore, confirms that the president has the authority to exercise “executive power” without consulting the Congress. For instance, George Bush set Americans to remain neutral in the war between Great Britain and France in 1793. The Supreme Court considered that the action was within the inherent powers of the head of state (Maggs, 2017). Therefore, the president has the powers to implement policies and impact foreign affairs by using authorities inferred from the Constitution.
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The US presidents also rely on clauses such as “statutory authorities and the role of “commander in chief” when making decisions regarding foreign issues. Particular legislation already passed by Congress is the one that gives the executive an opportunity to make a rule regarding specific foreign policy matters. A typical example is the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (1977) which provides the president with all powers to exert economic sanctions on foreign corporate bodies (Kinkopf, 2015). One of the practices that the Supreme Court considered constitutional was the one that involved President Franklin Roosevelt’s decision to ban Curtiss-Wright Export Corporation from selling firearms to Bolivia and Paraguay. In another case, the constitution supported President Harry Truman after commanding the seizure of US steel mills during the Korean War (Maggs, 2017). There is a consideration of a broad executive authority allowing the president to conduct diplomacy with other nations and recognize foreign matters without interference.
In a nutshell, the constitution supports the implied powers assumed by the president. Exercising some powers without congressional interference is one of the freedoms that the law grants to the head of state. For this reason, presidents make decisions regarding foreign issues based on some factors supported by the Constitution, including patronage benefits, inherent powers, and executive privileges.
References
Kinkopf, N. (2015). Inherent Presidential Power and Constitutional Structure. Presidential Studies Quarterly , 37(1), pp.37-48.
Maggs, G. (2017). How Justice Thomas Determines the Original Meaning of Article II of the Constitution. SSRN Electronic Journal .
Law2.umkc.edu. (2019). Presidential Powers under the U. S. Constitution . [online] Available at: http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/prespowers.html [Accessed 31 Mar. 2019].
