Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) on Friday expressed tentative support for President Donald Trump’s trade policies, marking a shift from his previous opposition.
“I believe that he has put on notice a lot of trading partners that have had an imbalance of trade with us, and I think that that’s good,” Tillis told video journalist Nicholas Ballasy.
Tillis added he believes “we’re in the early stages of the battle,” saying the “jury is still out” as the country waits for Trump to seal a final trade deal with China, ending the trade war with Beijing. However, the senator’s comments this week signal an increase in optimism on the tariff agenda since July, when Tillis called Trump’s sweeping April “Liberation Day” tariffs a “dud” and “objectively a failure.”
“The president is getting bad advice from maybe well-intentioned people who have no experience with execution,” he told Semafor at the time.
On Friday, Tillis qualified his skepticism.
“Still have to work through the tariffs and the downstream effects on businesses and consumers, but I think on the whole putting people on notice has had a good effect,” he told Ballasy.
The senator’s comments come after he was one of a handful of Republican lawmakers to sign on to legislation in April seeking to limit the president’s authority to unilaterally impose tariffs, as Trump did for the “Liberation Day” tariffs.
“Anyone who says there may be a little bit of pain before we get things right needs to talk to my farmers who are one crop away from bankruptcy,” Tillis told CNN at the time regarding the global tariffs. “So we’ve got to be crisp on this implementation. Otherwise, we could do damage that is irreparable to farmers.”
While he declined weeks later to back another effort to limit Trump’s tariff authorities in May, Tillis had a harsh message for the Trump administration during a Senate Finance Committee hearing.
“Whose throat do I get to choke if this [Trump’s tariff policies] proves to be wrong?” Tillis asked Trade Representative Jamieson Greer in April.
“It just seems like we’ve decided to begin a trade war on all fronts, and that’s OK, if the person who thought this through has an answer for why you go after partners that we have a very long, storied relationship with,” he added. “I wish you well, but I am skeptical.”
Tillis and Trump have a long history of disagreements, which were partly viewed as responsible for the senator’s surprise announcement in late June that he would not be running for reelection.
THOM TILLIS ANNOUNCES RETIREMENT AFTER OPPOSING TRUMP TAX BILL
The development came one day after Tillis broke with Trump by voting against the president’s marquee “big, beautiful bill,” leading the president to suggest he would back a primary challenge against the incumbent senator.
“It’s become increasingly evident that leaders who are willing to embrace bipartisanship, compromise, and demonstrate independent thinking are becoming an endangered species,” Tillis said in his retirement announcement.
