The Republican-controlled Senate on Wednesday issued a uncommon rebuke of President Donald Trump, when 4 GOP lawmakers joined each Democrat to cancel the nationwide emergency that Trump declared to justify placing punishing 25% tariffs on Canadian imports.
In February, Trump introduced he was placing a blanket 25% tariff on Canadian imports, saying the tariffs are a punishment for the nation supposedly permitting fentanyl to cross the border into the USA. On March 6, Trump paused these tariffs. However Canada is now subjected to tariffs on vehicles, aluminum, and metal—which Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney stated will negatively impression its economic system and has vowed to announce retaliatory tariffs.
After all, fentanyl isn’t coming into the USA from Canada, considered one of our greatest buying and selling companions and strongest allies.
It’s why Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, Mitch McConnell, and Rand Paul, each of Kentucky, voted for a decision launched by Democrats that terminates the bullshit nationwide emergency and thus the justification for Trump’s tariffs.
Senate Minority Chief Chuck Schumer, middle, is joined from left by Sens. Tim Kaine of Virginia, Peter Welch of Vermont, and Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland as they converse to reporters about President Donald Trump’s tariffs on overseas nations, on April 2, 2025.
“As I have always warned, tariffs are bad policy, and trade wars with our partners hurt working people most,” McConnell stated in an announcement, persevering with his pattern of opposing Trump now that he’s now not a GOP chief and is not working for reelection. “Tariffs drive up the cost of goods and services. They are a tax on everyday working Americans. Preserving the long-term prosperity of American industry and workers requires working with our allies, not against them. With so much at stake globally, the last thing we need is to pick fights with the very friends with whom we should be working with to protect against China’s predatory and unfair trade practices.”
And Paul, who has additionally slammed Trump’s tariffs, stated that this coverage will damage Republicans politically.
“When [then-President William] McKinley, most famously, put tariffs on in 1890, they lost 50% of their seats in the next election,” Paul stated Wednesday, in keeping with HuffPost. “When [Sen. Reed Smoot and Rep. Willis C. Hawley] put on their tariff in the early 1930s, we lost the House and the Senate for 60 years.”
Kentucky can be hit significantly onerous from Trump’s tariffs, with nations Trump has focused asserting they’ll retaliate by inserting their very own tariffs on Kentucky’s bourbon trade.
Democratic Sens. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Mark Warner, and Tim Kaine, each of Virginia, collectively filed the decision and known as Trump’s tariffs “deranged” and stated they’ll “not stand idly by while President Trump launches a needless trade war with Canada that will raise costs for families, hurt American businesses, and damage our relationship with one of our closest trading partners and allies.”
“The president has justified the imposition of these tariffs on, in my view, a made-up emergency,” Kaine instructed The New York Occasions. “The fentanyl emergency is from Mexico and China. It’s not from Canada.”
Trump, for his half, attacked the GOP senators who voted for the decision.
Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky
“Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Rand Paul, also of Kentucky, will hopefully get on the Republican bandwagon, for a change, and fight the Democrats wild and flagrant push to not penalize Canada for the sale, into our Country, of large amounts of Fentanyl, by Tariffing the value of this horrible and deadly drug in order to make it more costly to distribute and buy,” Trump wrote in a Fact Social submit, insanely suggesting that placing a tariff on Canada will someway cease the nation’s supposed fentanyl smugglers. In spite of everything, smugglers wouldn’t undergo authorized technique of commerce, anyway, in the event that they have been bringing it into the U.S.
After all, the Republican-controlled Home is unlikely to take up the decision. And even when Home Speaker Mike Johnson did put it up for a vote, it is unclear if there would even be sufficient Home Republican votes to move it.
Trump stated as a lot in his batshit loopy Fact Social submit.
“The Senate Bill is just a ploy of the Dems to show and expose the weakness of certain Republicans, namely these four, in that it is not going anywhere because the House will never approve it and I, as your President, will never sign it,” Trump stated. “Why are they allowing Fentanyl to pour into our Country unchecked, and without penalty. What is wrong with them, other than suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome, commonly known as TDS?”
Apparently, Republicans are nice with Trump’s tariffs tanking the inventory market and sending the world right into a recession as a result of their madman chief doesn’t perceive economics.
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