Bipartisan Effort To Terminate Trump’s Global Tariffs Ends In Defeat

The Senate voted Wednesday evening to preserve President Donald Trump’s emergency powers justifying his sweeping global tariffs that he imposed on most countries.

Three Senate Republicans — Rand Paul of Kentucky, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — joined their Democratic colleagues in a failed vote of 49 to 49 to terminate the president’s broad tariffs on imported goods.  Absences from Democratic Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse and Republican Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, who supported the resolution to undo the president’s tariffs, prevented the measure from passing the upper chamber.

It was the second time in less than a month that senators had forced a vote attempting to reject key planks of the president’s tariff policy. Senators shot down Trump’s Canada tariffs 51 to 48 on April 2 with four Republicans joining Senate Democrats to rescind the president’s emergency powers.

Both votes were largely symbolic because Speaker Mike Johnson has used procedural rules to prevent floor consideration of the resolutions in the House.

Trump also promised to veto the resolution targeting his global tariffs in the unlikely event the measure would reach his desk, the Daily Caller News Foundation first reported. The president declared a national emergency declaration April 2 to justify his baseline and so-called reciprocal tariffs on most countries.

Paul and Democratic Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden co-led the resolution to eliminate the foundation underpinning Trump’s global tariff authority. Though most legislation in the Senate is subject to a 60-vote threshold due to the longstanding practice of the filibuster, rescinding the president’s emergency powers requires a simple majority vote.

Senate Republicans defended Trump’s tariffs and voiced excitement about anticipated trade deals when asked by the DCNF Wednesday. The White House urged senators to reject the resolution, citing the administration’s ongoing work to craft trade agreements with dozens of countries.

“I believe that President Trump is doing the right thing,” Republican Florida Sen. Rick Scott told the DCNF. “What he’s trying to do is get American jobs back.”

“I would rather let the White House play this thing out and take what was for us ‘free trade’ and what for everybody else in the world was ‘fair trade’ and let President Trump try to find common ground,” Republican Wyoming Sen. Cynthia Lummis told the DCNF. “I want to let the President have some run here.”

Republican Montana Sen. Steve Daines also told the DCNF that he would oppose the resolution in order to give the president and administration officials additional time to negotiate trade deals.

Paul, who has been a frequent critic of the president’s tariffs, blasted House GOP leadership for using procedural tactics to stall a vote on the bill.

“It won’t get there [president’s desk] because the House is playing games,” Paul told the DCNF on Tuesday. “It’s a privileged motion and the House through chicanery and through a rule has overturned a law … that says you’re supposed to get a vote on an emergency.”

“In the House they’ve decreed by rule that they won’t obey the law by saying that legislative days don’t exist,” Paul continued. “The joke used to be [that] by rule or unanimous consent you could declare or decree that day was night. Now they’ve decreed that days don’t exist.”

Senate Democrats, seeking to capitalize on recent polling suggesting that voters are starting to disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy, torched the president’s tariffs as bad for Americans’ pocketbooks.

“The tariffs are going to be seen as one of the biggest economic blunders in a century,” Democratic Vermont Sen. Peter Welch told the DCNF. “The fact that Trump is doubling down and refusing to deal with the reality that this is causing inflation, it’s going to increase unemployment and a lot of hardship is wrong.”

“I think a lot of my Republican colleagues know this,” Welch added.