Independent agencies can wield significant foreign-policy power unchecked
Evidence
In 1997, there was a low-​level trade dispute running between the United States and Japan. As part of that dispute, a small, independent fed eral agency called the Federal Maritime Commission imposed a series of minor fines on Japan’s largest shipping companies, mostly to persuade Japan to drop a complicated set of rules it was imposing on American ships in Japanese ports. When the shippers didn’t pay, the commission exercised the full extent of its powers: it ordered the Coast Guard to bar Japanese cargo ships from U.S. ports and detain any Japanese ships currently in port. This move—​denying another country access to U.S. markets—​was, in the words of the New York Times, the “nuclear option” of trade talks, and shocked both the Japanese government and the Clinton administration, which had no advanced warning of the decision. — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law, 578
Categorization
- CANDY: A small federal shipping agency nearly triggered a US-Japan trade war — great conversational detail.
- QUESTION: Why are independent agencies legally free from presidential command, and does appointment power translate to any control at all?
- XREF: connects to: Independent agencies operate outside direct executive control — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law: An Introduction, 577; Dispersing state power across independent governance centers protects liberty without over-complicating rules. — Adelin-Costin Dumitru, Forging the Resistive Republic: Social…, 55
Broader Connections
- Dispersing state power across independent governance centers protects liberty without over-complicating rules.
#contradicts(0.75) — Adelin-Costin Dumitru, Forging the Resistive Republic, 55