President Donald Trump is facing pushback from Senate Republicans over his sweeping tariff regime, despite giving Mexico and Canada further reprieve.
GOP senators have generally shared public enthusiasm for Trump’s tariff plans. But in recent days, several lawmakers have publicly relayed fears over economic turbulence caused by the president’s stop-and-start approach to the levies.
“All the people who are involved with business in my state, not one of them has come to me and said, ‘Please put tariffs on, it will help us,” Kentucky Senator Rand Paul told CBS News Thursday. “Almost every industry in Kentucky has come to me and said, ‘It will hurt our industry and push up prices of homes, cars.’ And so, I’m gonna continue to argue against tariffs.”
Paul added: “I hope they’ll not go in place and I hope they won’t cause a recession, but already they’re talking about exemptions because even the people for them realize there are real problems with tariffs.”
North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis noted that the U.S. has leverage but doesn’t hold all the cards ahead of a looming global trade war.
“When we start losing, you back off. There’s such a thing as strategic retreat,” Tillis told CNN Thursday. “At the end of the day, I think we have more leverage than any other nation. But we gotta be smart. And we don’t have all the leverage”
Meanwhile, Louisiana Senator John Kennedy shared his tariff woes with Fox Business Wednesday and said the U.S. has entered “uncharted waters.”
“I’m worried about the tariffs. I’m not saying that tariffs are going to cause inflation. President Trump did them in his first term and they didn’t,” he said. “I’m saying that we just don’t know. We’re in very obscure territory. We’re in uncharted waters. I think if the tariffs do start to cause inflation, I think the president will back away from them.”
Kennedy continued: “If this starts causing inflation, we're gonna have to recalibrate.”
Trump granted a monthlong exemption on imported goods compliant with the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement he negotiated during his first term after a phone call with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum Thursday.
It came after the U.S.’s immediate northern and southern neighbors – and two largest trading partners – braced for blanket 25 percent tariffs Tuesday allegedly in a response to curb the flow of fentanyl and illegal migrants crossing into the country.
Chinese goods already impacted by a ten percent levy in early February also had another ten percent tacked on. In retaliatory comments this week, China said it is ready to fight “any type” of war with the U.S.
The Trump administration announced Wednesday that carmakers could escape the import taxes on all goods from Canada and Mexico for one month after the president spoke with top officials at General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune told CNN Tuesday that he believed Trump was trying to secure “an outcome that addresses a concern that the American people have.”
Though Thune, who represents South Dakota – which heavily relies on trade with Canada – noted that economic threats are “an issue.”
“That’s an issue in my view. I mean, I think you have to think about the economic impacts through inflation,” he said.
“I think you have to look at growth in the economy and how that’s impacted by all this. Those are, those are real issues. And so the administration is going to have to take, in my view, as they, as they evaluate some of these policy decisions, the macro-economic impacts of these.”
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