Cite as: 512 U. S. 298 (1994)
Opinion of the Court
enlist them. The Constitution expressly grants Congress, not the President, the power to "regulate Commerce with foreign Nations." U. S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 3. As we have detailed, supra, at 324-327, and nn. 23-27, Congress has focused its attention on this issue, but has refrained from exercising its authority to prohibit state-mandated worldwide combined reporting. That the Executive Branch proposed legislation to outlaw a state taxation practice, but encountered an unreceptive Congress, is not evidence that the practice interfered with the Nation's ability to speak with one voice, but is rather evidence that the preeminent speaker decided to yield the floor to others. Cf. Itel Containers Int'l Corp. v. Huddleston, 507 U. S. 60, 81 (1993) (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) ("[The President] is better able to decide than we are which state regulatory interests should currently be subordinated to our national interest in foreign commerce. Under the Constitution, however, neither he nor we were to make that decision, but only Congress.").
Congress may "delegate very large grants of its power over foreign commerce to the President," who "also possesses in his own right certain powers conferred by the Constitution on him as Commander-in-Chief and as the Nation's organ in foreign affairs." Chicago & Southern Air Lines, Inc. v. Waterman S. S. Corp., 333 U. S. 103, 109 (1948). We need not here consider the scope of the President's power to preempt state law pursuant to authority delegated by a statute or a ratified treaty; nor do we address whether the President may displace state law pursuant to legally binding executive agreements with foreign nations 31 made "in the absence of either a congressional grant or denial of authority, [where] he can only rely upon his own independent powers." Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U. S. 579, 637 (1952) (Jackson, J., concurring). The Executive Branch ac-31 See United States v. Belmont, 301 U. S. 324, 331-332 (1937).
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