Ted Cruz, the US senator from Texas, has warned that his fellow Republicans risk a “bloodbath” in the 2026 midterm elections if Donald Trump’s “liberation day” tariffs cause a recession.
Cruz also warned that the president’s tariffs, if they stay in place for long and are met by global retaliation on American goods, could trigger a full-blown trade war that “would destroy jobs here at home, and do real damage to the US economy”.
“A hundred years ago, the US economy didn’t have the leverage to have the kind of impact we do now. But I worry, there are voices within the administration that want to see these tariffs continue for ever and ever,” he added.
The Texan’s comments, made on his Verdict podcast on Friday, were a further sign that the imposition of global “reciprocal” duties on imported goods is causing unease among Republicans.
The Republican US senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa introduced bipartisan legislation on Thursday to grant Congress more power over placing tariffs on US trading nations. The bill, co-sponsored by the Democratic senator Maria Cantwell, would “reaffirm” the role of Congress in setting and approving trade policy.
The Republican senators Lisa Murkowski, Mitch McConnell, Jerry Moran and Thom Tillis have since signed on as co-sponsors. Though the legislation is considered largely symbolic, it telegraphs anxiety over the $5.4tn loss of stock market capitalization over two days and signs of an electoral backlash to Trump administration policies in the form of a defeat at the ballot box by a Wisconsin supreme court race candidate backed by Trump’s billionaire business adviser Elon Musk.
In two Florida congressional races, the Republican winners also underperformed.
On his podcast, Cruz warned that tariffs and trade retaliation over the long term could push the US into “a recession, particularly a bad recession – 2026 in all likelihood politically would be a bloodbath”.
“You would face a Democrat House, and you might even face a Democrat Senate,” Cruz said.
“If we’re in the middle of a recession and people are hurting badly, they punish the party in power,” Cruz warned, adding he did not share the White House’s position that the tariffs would usher in “a booming economy”.
But if “every other country on Earth” hits the US with retaliatory tariffs and Trump’s so-called reciprocal levies remain in place, “that is a terrible outcome” that “would destroy jobs here at home, and do real damage to the US economy”.
Cruz, nonetheless, held out an olive branch to the administration.
“Look, I want this to succeed … but my definition of succeed may be different than the White House’s,” he said, adding that his definition of success “is dramatically lower tariffs abroad and result in dramatically lowering tariffs here”.
“That’s success for the American workers, American businesses, American growth, American prosperity,” he continued. “That’s a great outcome.”
