Republicans warn Trump not to let trade war drag as he doubles down on tariff threats
Senate Republicans are warning President Trump to not let his trade war drag on as his latest escalation sent Wall Street further into turmoil.
Trump on Tuesday threatened to double tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum imports in response to Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s plan to issue a retaliatory surcharge on electricity to a trio of states. Ford backed off and Trump reversed course hours later, promising talks in Washington on Thursday about a renewal of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) before reciprocal tariffs go into effect early next month.
But Senate Republicans are fretting that if the tariff tit for tat isn’t resolved — and quickly — both Trump and American consumers will feel the pinch.
“If we have the same problem in May without some sort of signal that it’s tailed off or plateaued or changed direction, I would expect a little more angst,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) said on Tuesday evening following Trump’s walk-back. “But for now … most Americans are looking at it going, ‘Well, this is what the transition looks like I guess, so we can do that. We can live through that.’”
GOP senators also see the latest tariff whiplash as evidence of Trump trying to figure out how far he can go in the ongoing battle.
“It’s testing boundaries,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said. “The fits and starts are very, very disruptive to business. I don’t mind it, but we have to get to a steady state pretty soon.”
“It’s not a reaction to any one tariff,” Tillis continued, pointing to the toll the overall uncertainty is taking on the markets and businesses. “It’s like, ‘How do we plan?’”
For now, Wall Street has made it known it is not a fan of the current state of play.
Trump’s morning declaration that he would double his 25 percent levy on Canadian aluminum and steel imports prompted the Dow Jones Industrial Average to dip an additional 478 points, with the Nasdaq composite and the S&P 500 each also posting losses in back-to-back days.
While most GOP members remain reluctant to criticize the move directly, some expressed worries about the effects on their home states as uncertainty continues to give the market fits.
“I am not in favor of putting tariffs on Canadian products. My state’s economy is very integrated with Canada,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R), whose home state of Maine has the third-largest border with the neighbor to the north.
The Senate Appropriations Committee chair pointed to a number of areas that would suffer in a trade war with the Canadians, pointing specifically to a paper mill in her state that has a sister location across the St. John River and the processing of lobster and blueberries.
“The Canadians are our friends. They’re our allies,” she continued. “I don’t think we should be alienating them.”
But the latest fight only exacerbated the economic tumult over the past week, which included Trump’s refusal to rule out a possible recession over the weekend.
It’s given some Senate Republicans heartburn in the process. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) on Tuesday reiterated that he wants to give Trump room to breathe on the issue, but he put more ink on the ball than he has recently by noting that any action against the Canadians means his state will take an economic hit.
“I’m in a different place on tariffs. I support what the president’s trying to do. He’s trying to accomplish some specific purpose such as stopping the flow of fentanyl and things like that,” Thune told The Hill. “But I’m not a big fan generally of tariffs unless there’s a reason behind it.”
“I have a different view shaped largely by where I come from and the impact tariffs have on agricultural states. As you saw immediately, the first place that China retaliated against was against American agriculture,” Thune continued, adding that he hopes the tariffs are “temporary.”
“We’ll see. I think everybody is trying to figure out long term … what that policy might look like.”
According to multiple Senate GOP sources, lawmakers are not yet in panic mode over the performance on Wall Street, though they are by no means pleased to see it.
Trump and some of his lieutenants have made clear they expect the economy to be a bit bumpy in the near term. On top of the president saying he expects “a little disturbance,” Treasury Department Secretary Scott Bessent remarked last week that the economy is in for a “detox period.”
But the main worry remains in whether the troubles snowball, especially as Republicans try to pass their multitrillion-dollar tax cut via budget reconciliation.
“I think his framing of short-term, transitionary pain is something at the end of the day we can live with. A lot of our members are uncomfortably living with it, but living with it,” one Senate GOP aide said. “But certainly if this becomes a long-term trend, yeah — there’s going to be pushback from our side of the aisle. For sure.”
Trump for years has used Wall Street as a constant barometer of economic success, though many members continue to view it as a secondary one to what businesses on Main Street and back home are sensing.
However, they are eyeing the markets’ warnings.
“I think the markets will tell us whether it’s the right move or not,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) said earlier in the day, before the tariff reversal.
When told that the Dow was down roughly 400 points, Rounds didn’t change his tune.
“I think the markets will tell us whether it’s the right move or not,” he responded.
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