Beijing, January 12 (He Shaoqing and Li Jiayin) -- According to US media reports, US President Trump signed an executive order on January 9, declaring a national emergency.
That's right, it's the U.S. national emergency you're familiar with—the reason for signing this time is to "protect" Venezuelan oil revenues held in the U.S. Treasury account from "seizure or legal proceedings."
On November 5, 2025, local time, the Capitol Visitor Center in Washington, D.C., closed due to the federal government shutdown. (File photo) Photo by Chen Mengtong, China News Service.Does this move seem familiar? After all, this isn't the first time a US president has declared a national emergency. In the first five months of his presidency, Trump declared a national emergency eight times, a frequency that his predecessors could only dream of.
So the question arises: what exactly is a national emergency in the United States? And why are there so many national emergencies in the United States?
Simply put, a "national emergency" is a power granted to the U.S. President by laws such as the National Emergencies Act.
In 1976, then-President Ford signed the National Emergencies Act, which defined the power of the President to declare a national emergency and clarified the checks and balances mechanism of Congress over the President's declaration of an emergency.
Once this state is activated, the US president will have at least 136 statutory emergency powers, including seizure of property, regulation of production methods, confiscation of goods, sending troops abroad, imposing martial law, controlling transportation and communications, regulating the operation of private enterprises, and even suspending chemical and biological weapons control laws.
Historically, US presidents have declared national emergencies multiple times. Before the enactment of the National Emergencies Act, presidents such as Wilson, Roosevelt, and Nixon had all declared national emergencies. After the act's enactment, Bush and Obama also used this measure to address events such as 9/11 and the H1N1 influenza pandemic. Clinton declared national emergencies 19 times during his term.
On February 15, 2019, local time, US President Trump declared a national emergency. The photo shows then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, stating at a press conference on the 14th that she would assess legal measures to counter Trump's actions. (Photo by Chen Mengtong, China News Service)Before the enactment of the National Emergencies Act, the powers exercised under a national emergency in the United States were mostly directed at domestic matters; after the enactment of the Act, the scope of a national emergency now includes foreign governments, terrorist organizations, and foreign property in the United States.
The National Emergencies Act only provides procedural guidelines for the president to declare a national emergency, without specifying the conditions under which the president can do so. This allows the president to relatively easily invoke this power to address various issues. At the same time, the threshold for Congress to terminate a national emergency is high, leading to an increasing number of national emergencies in the United States.
It is worth mentioning that, in recent years, there have been increasing calls within the United States to reform the National Emergencies Act and address its shortcomings and the ambiguity of national emergency standards, in order to prevent national emergencies from becoming a tool for the president to undermine democratic institutions. (End)
