Trump’s constitutional guardrails have bent but not broken, law professor says

Kristen van de Biezenbos says the next major test could come if Congress or the Supreme Court directly constrains Donald Trump and the president refuses to comply

Trump’s push to expand presidential power has strained the U.S. constitutional system, but it has not yet produced the kind of open institutional rupture that would amount to a constitutional crisis, according to law professor Kristen van de Biezenbos.

“The constitutional guardrails have bent but not broken yet,” van de Biezenbos told Energi Media in an interview.

She said the decisive test would come if Congress or the Supreme Court exercised a clear constitutional power and President Donald Trump simply refused to obey. That, she said, would challenge the separation of powers among the executive, legislative and judicial branches.

Congress could become a bigger constraint after the 2026 midterm elections. Even control of the House would allow Democrats to intensify investigations, summon administration officials and use committee hearings to scrutinize executive actions. Control of both chambers would create greater capacity to legislate limits on presidential power.

But van de Biezenbos argued that those checks have been weakened. The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2024 Trump v. United States decision held that former presidents have absolute immunity from prosecution for actions within their exclusive constitutional authority and presumptive immunity for other official acts. She also pointed to Trump’s pardon power and his removal or replacement of institutional watchdogs as complications for congressional oversight.

Canada is inside the conflict

The debate over presidential power is increasingly relevant to Canada because Trump has coupled his domestic agenda with a more assertive view of U.S. power in the Western Hemisphere.

The administration’s 2025 National Security Strategy calls for the United States to “reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine” and restore American pre-eminence in the hemisphere. It also says Washington intends to prevent non-hemispheric competitors from controlling strategically important assets and to use tariffs and trade agreements as tools of commercial diplomacy.

Canada and the United States are already in a renewed tariff fight. Washington imposed 50 per cent tariffs on $27.6 billion of Canadian goods in August, according to the Canadian government. Ottawa responded with matching counter-tariffs on U.S. imports effective Sept. 8.

Van de Biezenbos said Prime Minister Mark Carney has emerged as a sharp contrast to Trump. She described Carney as internationally connected, financially sophisticated and willing to argue publicly that Canada must reduce its dependence on the United States.

“He really does come off as the most levelheaded and statesmanlike leader in North America,” she said, while noting that Canada’s resistance to U.S. pressure may itself be aggravating the bilateral conflict.

The Supreme Court is part of the story

Van de Biezenbos said the constitutional debate cannot be reduced to Trump and Congress. The Supreme Court, she argued, has also expanded its own role through sweeping decisions that affect the balance among the branches.

The larger question, she said, is whether a future Congress can rebuild limits that once depended partly on law and partly on political norms.

For now, her conclusion is cautious rather than reassuring: the guardrails are still standing. The next confrontation will show how much they can take.