Trump’s Tariffs Are Tying Republicans in Knots
Republicans aren’t typically big fans of taking deliberate action to crash the stock market — but that’s what Donald Trump did on Wednesday, putting lawmakers who have fashioned their careers around fluffing the president in a tough spot.
There are, of course, plenty of Republicans who have given their full-throated support to Trump’s sweeping tariff agenda — a mind-blowingly dangerous economic maneuver that is expected to cause prices of everyday goods to skyrocket — but there are also plenty who haven’t been able to hide their unease over the move.
“I’m concerned. The stock market is concerned. I’m concerned,” a visibly flustered Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said on Thursday. “I don’t have the president’s strongly held belief that this is absolutely what has to be done. But he’s president, I’m not. He ran on this. I hope he’s absolutely right.”
Republicans who appear to understand the recklessness of what Trump did on Wednesday are largely coalescing around the idea that yes, this seems bad, but we need to give it time to play out and see what happens.
“I think it would be a mistake to have high tariffs in perpetuity. I don’t think that would be good economic policy. I am not a fan of tariffs,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said Thursday on Fox Business, adding that “time will tell” what happens, musing that perhaps other nations will reduce their tariffs on the U.S. in response, which will allow Trump to scale back the tariffs implemented Wednesday.
It might not go that way, though. “If the result is our trading partners jack up their tariffs and we have high tariffs everywhere, I think that is a bad outcome for America,” Cruz said. “Tariffs are a tax on consumers, and I’m not a fan of jacking up taxes on American consumers.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said he will give Trump “the benefit of the doubt and see how it goes.” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said to ask him “in two months” and that it’s “a wait-and-see proposition.” Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.) told Fox Business on Friday that Americans need to “give the administration a little room” and that “it’s just the beginning” when asked about the markets tanking for a second consecutive day following Trump’s tariff announcement.
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The problem with giving Trump the benefit of the doubt is that he doesn’t seem to have any clue what he’s doing. Rolling Stone reported on Thursday that the White House was cobbling together the nonsensical details of the plan up until the last moment, and that Trump “wanted the numbers to be huge.” Trump posted about how America “IS HEALING” as the markets plummeted on Thursday morning, before heading to Florida for a golf tournament later in the day. He insisted on Friday that “MY POLICIES WILL NEVER CHANGE,” adding that “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO GET RICH, RICHER THAN EVER BEFORE!!!”
The all-caps, get-rich-quick pitch isn’t likely to reassure Americans whose livelihoods are at stake, or the foreign nations that Republicans want to negotiate with Trump. Despite Cruz’s hope that the tariffs will lead these nations to reduce their taxes on American goods, the opposite is happening. On Thursday, Canada announced countermeasures, including retaliatory tariffs on U.S. automobiles. On Friday, China imposed a reciprocal 34-percent tariff on all U.S. goods.
“CHINA PLAYED IT WRONG, THEY PANICKED —THE ONE THING THEY CANNOT AFFORD TO DO!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Republicans can do something about this.
The Senate voted on Wednesday to block some of the tariffs Trump previously imposed on Canada, with Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a cosponsor of the legislation, Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) joining Democrats. “Tariffs are a terrible mistake,” Paul said, per The New York Times. “They don’t work. They will lead to higher prices.”
Grassley, who said the new tariffs are “a wait-and-see proposition,” separately introduced legislation that would require the president to notify Congress ahead of any new tariff imposition, and give Congress the power to end any tariff at any time. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) signaled later on Thursday that he could support the bill, although, ultimately, Republicans doing something that would block one of Trump’s signature actions as president is unlikely.
Tillis ripped the idea of tariffs earlier this week, as well as how the Trump administration and its allies have warned that Americans may experience some financial hardship as a result of the tariffs. “Anyone who says there may be a little bit of pain before we get things right, need to talk to my farmers, who are one crop away from bankruptcy,” Tillis said. “They don’t have time. We’ve got to be crisp about this implementation, otherwise we could do damage that is irreparable.”
Unfortunately for Tillis, the farmers of North Carolina, millions of other working Americans, and the global economy, “crisp” isn’t a word often used to describe Trump and his administration’s approach to governance.