For the third time in three days, the Senate was asked whether it approves of President Donald Trump’s tariffs. And for the third time, they said “no.”
This time, the vote was to end the national emergency Trump used to declare global “reciprocal” tariffs, the sweeping duties of between 10 and 50 percent that he imposed on nearly every country in the world this summer.
The vote passed 51-47, with the same group of four Republican senators crossing party lines as on previous votes this week disapproving of Trump’s tariffs on Canada and Brazil: Rand Paul of Kentucky, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. A similar vote in April failed due to the absence of McConnell and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.).
The series of symbolic rebukes this week in the Senate stood in stark contrast to Trump’s nearly weeklong trip to Asia, where he touted his use of tariffs as a means to secure new trade agreements and unprecedented foreign investment commitments. The resolution the Senate approved on Thursday takes aim at the tariffs that have served as a foundation for those agreements.
