Trump Is Expanding Executive Power. Democrats Are Already Eyeing the New Tools.

President Donald Trump has greatly—and, in many cases, quite recklessly—expanded the executive branch’s power over private businesses.

The Trump administration has invoked claims of “national security” to levy higher tariffs on everything from steel to musical instruments. It has used the same argument to seize equity shares in more than two dozen private companies, including a so-called “golden share” in U.S. Steel that grants the president the authority to veto future attempts to relocate headquarters or make changes to its production facilities.

And if you think a future Democratic administration will try to stuff those executive powers back into their proper, constitutional boxes, well…don’t hold your breath.

Take California Gov. Gavin Newsom, widely regarded as a serious contender in the 2028 presidential race, for example. Last week, a Canadian journalist asked Newsom to give assurances that a future Democratic administration would roll back the massive tariffs Trump has imposed on goods from Canada.

“I cannot guarantee that,” Newsom said. “But I can guarantee you nothing like this, the level of disrespect, talking past people, talking down to people, talking past and down to you.”

In other words: a kindler, gentler tariff regime, delivered with carefully chosen language.

That might be an improvement, in some ways, over the haphazard nature of Trump’s various trade wars. But it would not be a win for free trade, and it would not help Americans who are struggling to afford the cost of higher tariffs.

To be fair, not all Democrats are taking that approach. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D–N.Y.) introduced a bill to curtail presidential tariff powers, and a group of Democrats in the House have led efforts to stop Trump’s abuses of various tariff powers, with little success.

Meanwhile, other Democrats are licking their chops over the vast economic powers that Trump has claimed for the presidency.

Many Democrats “see an opening, now that Trump has managed to cross what was long viewed as a political red line: putting the government in business with specific companies, influencing their governance and literally letting taxpayers share in the upside—or the downside,” reports Politico.

Trump’s demand for a golden share in U.S. Steel has “normalized this idea, you know, which I think again, sort of before 2024, I associated a lot with Bernie Sanders,” Todd Tucker, director of industrial and trade policy for the Roosevelt Institute, tells Politico.

The Roosevelt Institute, which is run by Elizabeth Wilkens, a Biden administration veteran and Lina Khan’s former chief of staff, is already planning how a future Democratic administration might use those tools. In a report published in July, the think tank detailed how the government could take equity stakes in companies to gain access to corporate boards and influence decisions.

Having direct access to corporate boardrooms will “give the government eyes, ears, and voice on setting corporate priorities in a way that one-off grants do not (and with lower transaction costs than the latter),” the report states. “While this power can be bad in the wrong hands, it can be useful in the right ones. Future policymakers could use these levers to mandate faster decarbonization, recognizing labor unions, ‘buying American,’ or banning stock buybacks.”

Because why worry about how power can be used in “the wrong hands,” right?

Certainly, the Trump administration isn’t concerned with that. Its guiding principle for executive power was best articulated by Vice President J.D. Vance in October 2025: “We cannot be afraid to do something because the left might do it in the future.”

At the time, Vance was responding to a college student who expressed concern about an unfriendly administration potentially targeting conservatives who might protest against it. “How can we prevent someone from abusing that power?” the student asked.

The Trump administration might shrug off those worries, but it is becoming obvious that some on the left are already eyeing the inverse of Vance’s phrasing: “We can do this, because the right already did it in the past.”

That may turn out to be the Trump administration’s most lasting policy legacy.