Presidential Power in Foreign & Domestic Affairs

The major powers within the United States are distributed in accordance with the Constitution of the country. This document secures powers, for example command of the military forces, exclusively to president or the regulation of foreign commerce to Congress and so on. The separation of powers has led to a great number of debates regarding the roles of the president and Congress in domestic and foreign affairs along with their respective authorities and their limits. Presidential power is described in the Constitution. The president has a variety of departments and offices, which operate under him. There is a system of power distribution between the president and Congress in the United States, which is defined by the Constitution of the U.S.; however, along with significant political, economic and environmental changes globally, the concentration of the powers shifts towards the president.

In the Article I of the Constitution it is possible to find the foreign affairs powers of Congress, for example “regulate commerce with foreign nations,” “declare war,” “raise and support armies,” “provide and maintain a navy,” and “make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces.” (Levy 1994). The Constitution also defines two of the president’s foreign affairs powers – appointing of diplomats and making treaties in accordance to the approval from Senate. Congress has also the so – called general powers – to lay and collect taxes, “to draw money from the Treasury, and to “make all laws which shall be necessary and proper” (Levy 1994). Congress performs also an oversight role. Congressional committees review the budgets and programs of the military and diplomatic bureaucracies. Lawmakers sign off the cases, when the sums are higher than a trillion dollars in federal spending annually. Along with this they stipulate the way of spending money. Also Congress is authorized to make investigations of the particular foreign policy as well as national security concerns. “High-profile inquiries in recent years have centered on the 9/11 attacks, the Central Intelligence Agency’s detention and interrogation programs, and the 2012 attack on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, Libya.” (Moten 2014). Congress has the power to eliminate or create the agencies of executive branch, usually this procedure is done after crisis periods and conflicts.

The authority of the president in foreign affairs is defined in Article II of the Constitution. According to it the president has the power to make treaties and appoint ambassadors on the basis of the consent of the Senate. There is a need to obtain approval for the treaties from the two-thirds of the senators present. Appointments are made under the condition of simple majority. There are also other clauses, which support the foreign policy activities of presidents, for example those related to “executive power” and the role of “commander in chief of the army and navy” on the office. (Levy 1994). In addition there is a list of “implied” or associated powers. They include for example the explicit power to appoint and receive ambassadors, the authority to recognize foreign governments and establish diplomatic relations with other countries. For the commander-in-chief there are also additional powers – to use the military force and collect foreign intelligence. Presidents also have power for statutory authorities. According to the legislation from Congress, the executive additional authority to take decisions on special foreign policy issues belongs to the president. One of the examples is the International Emergency Economical Powers Act (1977), which passes the authority to the president for imposing of economic sanctions on foreign entities. “Presidents also cite case law to support their claims of authority. In particular, two U.S. Supreme Court decisions—United States. v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corporation (1936) and Youngstown Sheet & Tube Company v. Sawyer (1952)—are touchstones.” (Levy 1994).

Analysis of concrete examples of domestic and foreign affairs could be of great help for analyzing of the distribution of powers between the president and Congress in America.

One of the examples of foreign affairs was the situation when President Obama was outside the Blue Room on the 10th of September with the aim to inform about the major expansion of airstrikes in the Middle East. His explanation meant that he could not find any other choice. He claimed that the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) turned into a serious threat for the whole region, as well as for the American citizens, facilities and personnel. He continued by stating that if not to take the needed rash measures, in that case to drop bombs and to provide weapons supplies, ISIS would gradually turn into a threat for the whole America. At the same time there was a need to obtain an authorization from Congress. “President Obama “welcomed” legislative support, not out of legal necessity, but as one might welcome an extra hand when moving a heavy couch. “I have the authority to address the threat from ISIL,” he said, using another name for ISIS. “But I believe we are strongest as a nation when the president and Congress work together.” (Moten 2014). This was a rare example of the case, when the president welcomed the congressional participation for taking a decision about war. Most of them preferred flexibility positions and unilateral actions, conducted informally by Congress, which were then sanctioned by federal courts to make them formal. “The presidents’ broad foreign policy prerogatives, though, are in stark contrast to the policymaking pattern in domestic affairs, where the executive’s agenda is so often stymied, undermined, and defeated by a hostile legislature.” (Moten 2014). To conclude here, foreign policy, especially the policy of war, is usually easier to enact for the presidents in comparison to domestic affairs, as courts and legislators tend to accept the president’s military decisions and at the same time preserve their deference for domestic policy activities and decisions. Actually the case with Obama’s decision not to consult Congress before taking the decision to start bombing of ISIS is unusual in the history of the country. Other examples could be found some time ago, when the military campaign against Muammar Gaddafi’s fighters in Libya was launched. President Clinton did not ask for the approval from Congress, when bombed Kosovo, Afghanistan and Sudan. President Reagan was known to take the similar decisions about Grenada and Libya. Thus, although it is claimed in the Constitution that “Congress shall have power to . . . declare War,” this power was never really in use. President’s Obama decision to condition military actions on congressional approval in 2013 is currently considered to be a gesture of smart political posturing. (Moten 2014).

The situation with domestic policy and decisions is different in comparison to foreign affairs. As soon as President Obama won the reelection campaign, he had to found out that all his political decisions regarding domestic initiatives, for example immigration reform or gun control policies were stopped by the Madisonian maze of veto. Finally the president was forced him to support half-measures, including administrative regulations and executive orders in order to complete the domestic agenda. In 2010 Congress passed a tax bill, food safety bill and 9/11 first responders bill, ratified a nuclear nonproliferation treaty, whereas Obama wasn’t expected to enact any additional domestic legislation of any significance. The president is not able to pass any laws himself and does not have the chance to stop the laws, which are going to be passed by Congress. There is an opportunity of denying an order with momentarily veto, by Congress could override it as well.

The above examples reveal the existing controversies in the relationship between the president and Congress in some spheres. There are a lot of debates regarding the real need of having a strong president and the extent to which he should be given the chance to concentrate powers in his hands in both foreign and domestic affairs. Some of the researchers come to the conclusion that recently the president managed to take so much power from different branches of the government that it could be a threat to the democratic system of the United States. Certainly the basic document, which defines the limits of the presidential power, is the U.S. Constitution, namely its Article II. At the same time the Constitution was produced 200 years ago and during the period, when it was made up there was no information about nuclear weapons and computers and rockets and television. Nobody was able to predict such sophisticated development of economy and international relations on the basis of globalization and so on. These are probably the major reasons, why the concentration of the powers shifts gradually from Congress more to the president. The president in modern America has the power to give the order to destruct the entire cities, the country has thousands of missiles with nuclear warheads and this is the power of the president to give an order to use them. The president has the chance to travel over the whole world by jet and this intensifies the process of international relations. The American citizens develop great expectations regarding their president, which foresees his involvement into a great number of affairs and decision taking processes.

Overall, the system of power distribution, which was worked out for the United States and was defined in the Constitution, does not remain static. It continues to change along with changes of the role of the president and expectations towards the president of the county, as well as under the impact of global changes.

Works cited:

Abbott, Philip. Strong Presidents: A Theory of Leadership. Knoxville, Tenn., 1996

Cohen, Ross. Who is more powerful, the President of the United States or Congress? History and Political Science, 2016

Congress & President:Keeping the Balance. Harry S. Truman Library & Museum, 2017

Levy, Leonard W., and Louis Fisher, eds. Encyclopedia of the American Presidency. 4 vols. New York, 1994

Mitchell, Alison . The World; Only Congress Can Declare War. Really. It’s True. The New York Times, 1999

Moten, Matthew. Presidents and Their Generals: An American History of Command in War, 2014

The Evolution of the Presidency. American Government, 2018 Retrieved from http://www.ushistory.org/gov/7a.asp

The terms offer and acceptance. (2016, May 17). Retrieved from

[Accessed: March 19, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016.

[Accessed: March 19, 2024]

freeessays.club (2016) The terms offer and acceptance [Online].
Available at:

[Accessed: March 19, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 19, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 19, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 19, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 19, 2024]
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