Trump has vowed a historic reworking of tariff policy that would feature universal tariffs on rivals and allies alike. Experts are saying he would likely be able to do most of what he’s promised through the power of his office, although the efforts may end up being temporary and would face legal challenges that could derail them.

Still, at least one of Trump’s tariff proposals would likely need Congress’s stamp of approval, which could be a tough task even if Republicans win both chambers.

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Trump’s tariff agenda, if fulfilled as he campaigned on, would represent a major shift in trade policy. His most aggressive idea is to levy 10% to 20% across-the-board tariffs, although he has also pushed for a legal change that would give him the power to unilaterally impose tariffs of equal size placed by other countries on the United States, something that would require lawmakers to approve.

Experts think it is likely Trump can impose some of his tariff agenda right out of the gate.

“There’s a bucket of laws out there that Congress has passed that delegate their constitutional authority to the president — and do so on really broad and ambiguous terms,” Scott Lincicome, vice president at the Cato Institute and an expert in trade policy, told the Washington Examiner.

Trump used existing laws to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum and to carry out a trade war with China, all without legislation from Congress.

In 2018, Trump successfully used Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which gives the president broad power to levy tariffs if there is a threat to national security, to impose a 25% tariff on imported steel and a 10% tariff on aluminum. In the following years of the Trump administration, exemptions were granted to several countries, including Australia, Canada, and Mexico.

President Joe Biden replaced most of those steel and aluminum tariffs with tariff rate quota systems, which allow certain levels of imports to be tariff-free.

Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 gives broad authority to impose retaliatory tariffs if the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative finds the exporting country in question is violating U.S. rights under trade agreements. Trump previously used Section 301 to apply several rounds of tariffs on Chinese imports throughout his presidency.

Biden kept those Section 301 tariffs against China and decided to impose higher rates on nearly $20 billion worth of goods. The increased Biden tariff rates range from 25% to 100% and are applied to steel and aluminum, batteries, semiconductors, and more coming from China.

Bill Reinsch, a trade policy expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies who served for 15 years as president of the National Foreign Trade Council, said despite some disagreement on the matter, he thinks Trump could unilaterally apply across-the-board tariffs and “get away with it, at least for a while.”

Reinsch said it is likely that Trump, as president, would try to use the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a 1977 law that is often used to impose sanctions on adversaries, to declare an economic emergency. From there, he would have broad powers, including tariff powers.

In his first term, Trump threatened to use IEEPA to impose tariffs on all Mexican imports, leveraging the threat to exact concessions on immigration. Trump later backed down from the move after Mexico agreed to make some changes to its immigration enforcement.

“And he can do that probably on day one if he wanted to,” Reinsch told the Washington Examiner. “I mean, there is supposed to be a consultation process, but there is no punishment if he doesn’t follow it.”

Trump would face litigation over tariffs imposed through the IEEPA. However, the question would then become whether the plaintiffs could find a judge willing to grant an injunction to prevent the tariffs from going into effect while the case is being litigated.

If no judge signs off on a stay, the tariffs could hold up for months or years as the case winds its way through the court system. Reinsch said he personally thinks it would be very challenging to find a judge who is willing to second-guess the president on something that has been declared a national security matter.

“I mean, if the president says there’s an international economic emergency, is there a judge out there that’s going to say, ‘No, there’s not. I know more about that than you do?’” he said.

Reinsch said it wouldn’t be hard to find standing to sue, which would basically be presenting an argument that the tariffs would cause the plaintiff or plaintiffs irreparable harm.

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Trump could, in a second term, use Section 301 to apply 10% to 20% tariffs on all imports to the U.S. and a 60% tariff on imports from China if the administration finds all U.S. trading partners are acting unfairly, according to a report co-authored by Reinsch.

Notably, Biden kept much of Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum intact.

Lincicome said he can pretty easily see the arguments that would be available to the president to at least justify these things initially ahead of any future court battles. He also said, so far, the courts have been “extremely deferential” to the previous Trump-era tariffs and have essentially shot down every challenge to the tariffs and laws supporting them.

“And so, the question becomes: is a global tariff approach too far? And that’s, I think, anybody’s guess,” Lincicome said.

There is another section of the law Trump could use to justify the tariffs: Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974.

That section would allow Trump to temporarily impose an added 15% tariff on imports for 150 days: “Whenever fundamental international payments problems require special import measures to restrict imports — (1) to deal with large and serious United States balance-of-payments deficits, (2) to prevent an imminent and significant depreciation of the dollar in foreign exchange markets.”

Still, using that provision would only last for a few months.

“That’s the thing to use because that addresses what he will probably say is the problem — but it’s only 15%, and it’s only 150 days,” Reinsch said.

The Trump campaign sees tariffs as a way to remake the U.S. economy into one with a stronger manufacturing base and more self-reliance.

His new proposals would challenge not just U.S. trade with any one country and not just a retreat from the free-trade ambitions of recent GOP party leaders, such as former President George W. Bush and former House Speaker Paul Ryan, but also to the international rules that have gone mostly unchallenged for decades.

Anna Kelly, a spokesperson for the Republican National Committee, provided the Washington Examiner a statement that accused Vice President Kamala Harris of fearmongering about Trump’s tariff agenda and said the course correction brought on by the proposed tariff changes would be good for the country.

“Harris can’t keep her story straight, but the truth is the same: Harris has always opposed tariffs because she can’t be trusted to put workers first, but President Trump will re-shore American jobs, keep inflation low, and raise real wages by lowering taxes, cutting regulations, and unshackling American energy,” she said.

In addition to universal tariffs, Trump is seeking a change that would give him the power to unilaterally impose tariffs of equal size placed by other countries on the U.S. He is referring to a Reciprocal Trade Act, which would need Congress’s stamp of approval.

“I will pass the Trump Reciprocal Trade Act,” Trump said at a rally in North Carolina earlier this year. “If China or any country makes us pay a 100 or 200% tariff, we will make them pay a reciprocal tariff of 100 or 200% right back.”

The idea is that U.S. tariffs should be aligned with those of its trading partners. Not only would such a plan face legislative hurdles, but it would also be unwieldy.

Reinsch said such a thing would be a “nightmare” to administer, given that Customs and Border Protection would have to spend an enormous amount of time and paperwork to determine where an import came from. It would also turn U.S. tariff authority over to other countries instead of asking what tariff level is in the best interest of the U.S. to pursue.

Lincicome said trying to match every country’s tariff on every single product, line for line, would be a “Herculean task.”

“Because Congress would actually have to legislate the tariff rates and do so by country,” he said.

Still, Trump has not been inflexible on tariff policy. During a speech before the Chicago Economic Club this month, he relayed a story about how he gave Apple a one-year reprieve to allow time to relocate resources from China.

Lincicome said U.S. tariff code is already thousands of pages long for every country combined. Under the new law, every country in the world would essentially have to get its own tariff code, he added. He said such a law could not pass the Senate.

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Still, the Trump campaign argues that all the problems with a stronger tariff policy are moot if the goal of such tariffs becomes a reality—reshoring manufacturing in the U.S.

“There are no tariffs. All you have to do is build your plant in the United States, and you don’t have any tariffs,” Trump said at the Chicago Economic Club.