A top Senate Republican unveiled a bipartisan bill Wednesday that would allow Congress to overturn President Trump’s recent burst of tariffs with a simple-majority vote.
Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker accused Trump of “abusing” the authority to impose tariffs in the name of national security. The legislation presents a challenge to the White House’s argument that steel and aluminum imports from Canada, Mexico, and the European Union hurt U.S. national security, and necessitate tariffs.
“If the president truly believes invoking Section 232 is necessary to protect the United States from a genuine threat, he should make the case to Congress and to the American people and do the hard work necessary to secure congressional approval,” Corker, a Tennessee Republican, said Wednesday.
Corker’s bill would create a fast-track process for overturning the tariffs. The legislation, if adopted, would create a 60-day period in which Congress could review such tariffs and vote on a resolution of approval.
The bill is designed to “guarantee a vote” on the resolution by stipulating that a debate on the resolution cannot be filibustered. And because it “would apply to all Section 232 actions moving forward, as well as those taken within the past two years,” it would ease the path to reversing the president’s most recent trade policies.
“In general, these kinds of tariffs are a big mistake, and using national security as an excuse is a bigger mistake,” Sen. Lamar Alexander — another Tennessee Republican who chairs the committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions — said of the bill.
Trump’s team defended the tariffs as a necessary tool to force trade reform.
“Don’t blame Trump. Blame the nations that have broken away from those conditions,” Larry Kudlow, director of the White House National Economic Council, told reporters Wednesday. “I think free world trade is a very good thing indeed. But it is broken, and President Trump is trying to fix it. And that’s the key point.”
But the senators argue that Trump can’t use Section 232 to advance that goal.
“Making claims regarding national security to justify what is inherently an economic question not only harms the very people we all want to help and impairs relations with our allies but also could invite our competitors to retaliate,” Corker said.
The legislation is co-sponsored by leading Senate Democrats, including one of the most vulnerable lawmakers up for re-election this year.
“The implications of these tariffs are significant – on our own producers and businesses because of retaliatory tariffs we’re now seeing and on our relationships with our allies who could use the same claims of national security to impose tariffs on us,” Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., said Wednesday. “Huge economic policy decisions like tariffs shouldn’t be taken lightly, and Congress should serve as a needed check to make sure we aren’t losing out in the end.”
