By Siobhan Hughes, Gavin Bade and Lindsay Wise
WASHINGTON—A handful of Republican senators broke with President Trump on trade policy, joining with Democrats to pass a resolution aiming to undo the president’s 25% tariff on Canadian imports.
The 51-48 vote to approve the measure took place just hours after Trump imposed a 10% baseline tariff on all imports to the U.S., and higher rates for some nations. It marked a significant rebuke of the president’s expansive effort to overhaul U.S. trade policy with friends and foes alike.
The resolution, led by Sen. Tim Kaine (D., Va.), would end an emergency declaration Trump used to impose tariffs on Canadian goods—the first time, along with a similar move on goods from Mexico, that a president had ever used the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose tariffs.
Under federal law, Congress has the power to cancel national emergencies declared by the president. But the current proposal has been blocked in the GOP-led House, and Trump could veto any measure that makes it to his desk, making Wednesday’s vote largely symbolic.
Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky joined with all Democrats in backing the resolution. Paul, who is a co-sponsor of the bill, has argued that tariffs are a tax and that only Congress—not the president—can impose taxes under the Constitution.
“This is a tax, plain and simple, on the American people,” Paul said. “You can’t simply declare an emergency and say, ‘Well, the constitutional republic was great, but gosh, we’ve got an emergency and times are dire.’
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