Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 488

524US2

Unit: $U93

[09-11-00 13:25:42] PAGES PGT: OPIN

Cite as: 524 U. S. 417 (1998)

443

Opinion of the Court

and exactions, reciprocally unequal and unreasonable,
were imposed upon the agricultural or other products of
the United States by a country producing and exporting
sugar, molasses, coffee, tea or hides, it became his duty
to issue a proclamation declaring the suspension, as to
that country, which Congress had determined should
occur. He had no discretion in the premises except in
respect to the duration of the suspension so ordered.
But that related only to the enforcement of the policy
established by Congress. As the suspension was abso-
lutely required when the President ascertained the ex-
istence of a particular fact, it cannot be said that in as-
certaining that fact and in issuing his proclamation, in
obedience to the legislative will, he exercised the func-
tion of making laws. . . . It was a part of the law itself
as it left the hands of Congress that the provisions, full
and complete in themselves, permitting the free intro-
duction of sugars, molasses, coffee, tea and hides, from
particular countries, should be suspended, in a given
contingency, and that in case of such suspensions certain
duties should be imposed.”

Id., at 693.

This passage identiﬁes three critical differences between
the power to suspend the exemption from import duties and
the power to cancel portions of a duly enacted statute.
First, the exercise of the suspension power was contingent
upon a condition that did not exist when the Tariff Act was
passed: the imposition of “reciprocally unequal and unreason-
In contrast, the ex-
able” import duties by other countries.
ercise of the cancellation power within ﬁve days after the
enactment of the Balanced Budget and Tax Reform Acts nec-
essarily was based on the same conditions that Congress
evaluated when it passed those statutes. Second, under the
Tariff Act, when the President determined that the contin-
gency had arisen, he had a duty to suspend; in contrast, while
it is true that the President was required by the Act to make
three determinations before he canceled a provision, see 2