Senate Republicans are set to face their latest unity test this week on President Donald Trump’s tariffs and import taxes, which have created heartburn for GOP lawmakers since the White House imposed them earlier this year.
The GOP-controlled chamber will hold three separate votes later this week, forced by Democrats and backed by a handful of Republicans, to terminate the national emergency declarations Trump has used to place tariffs against Canada and Brazil, as well as a 10% global baseline he has set for United States trading partners.
Vice President JD Vance will attend the Senate Republicans’ weekly lunch meeting on Tuesday to discuss the tariff votes, which could come as early as Wednesday, according to a source familiar with the matter.
The votes only require simple majorities to pass and are likely to present the latest rebuke of the president’s tariff policies by members of his own party, as Republicans have traditionally upheld principles of free trade. However, they will be little more than symbolic gestures. House Republicans rewrote chamber rules earlier this year to prevent forced floor votes regarding Trump’s tariffs using what are known as privileged resolutions.
“Americans will see if Republicans put Donald Trump or average families first,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said in recent floor remarks.
The trio of votes will occur before the Supreme Court weighs whether to invalidate a lower court’s decision to strike down the president’s global tariffs. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) was the lone Republican to sign on to an amicus brief supporting the lower court ruling, along with more than 200 Democrats from the House and Senate.
“The President’s imposition of tariffs under [the International Emergency Economic Powers Act] is unlawful,” the members state in the brief. “Only Congress has the power to ‘lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises,’… and to ‘regulate Commerce with foreign Nations.’”
The measure to overturn Trump’s Canada tariffs passed the Senate in April with bipartisan support from all Democrats and Republicans, Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Rand Paul (R-KY), Susan Collins (R-ME), and Murkowski. A vote to roll back the global tariffs failed later that same month because of absences from two supporters of the resolution: McConnell and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI).
Trump recently halted trade talks with Canada and hiked their tariff rate by an additional 10%, on top of their 35% rate, over an anti-tariff ad from Ontario officials using soundbites from former President Ronald Reagan. However, most Canadian goods were already exempt under the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
TRUMP INCREASES TARIFF ON CANADA AFTER REAGAN AD RE-AIRS
“Because of their serious misrepresentation of the facts, and hostile act, I am increasing the Tariff on Canada by 10% over and above what they are paying now,” Trump posted to Truth Social over the weekend.
Toppling Brazil’s tariffs, currently at 50%, is novel to the Senate but has support from Republicans Paul, Collins, and Murkowski. The tariff was apparently imposed due to the country’s prosecution of Trump ally and former President Jair Bolsonaro, though hopes of a trade deal to reduce the duties were revived this week following a meeting between Trump and Brazil’s leader.
David Sivak contributed to this report.
