The Republican-controlled Senate narrowly passed a bill to end Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canada, highlighting GOP divisions over the duties just days after the president threatened to increase them further to punish the US’s northern neighbor.
Four Republicans joined all Democrats to pass the legislation on a 50-46 vote.
The vote underscores unease with the tariffs as Americans head into the holiday shopping season. It’s the second time this week the GOP-held body has split from the president over tariffs, after seeking to limit levies on Brazil earlier this week.
It was also the second time this year that the Senate has gone on record against Trump’s tariffs on Canada. Republicans Mitch McConnell, Rand Paul, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski voted in favor of the measure and in opposition to Trump’s Canadian tariffs, as they did earlier this year.
Yet the vote also demonstrates the difficulty lawmakers face in regaining trade authority Congress has ceded to the White House.
The legislation amounts to little more than a public rebuke, since to take effect it must also pass the House and then be signed by the president — who would almost certainly veto it. The Senate’s vote fell far short of the two-thirds that would be needed to override any Trump veto, and House Republican leaders have flatly refused to bring up anti-tariff legislation at all this year.
Hostility between the US and Canada escalated last week, when Ontario Premier Doug Ford aired a television ad during the World Series that used the words of former US President Ronald Reagan to condemn tariffs. In response, Trump said that he was ending trade talks with Canada. He later vowed to add an additional 10% tariff on the country’s imports.
While Canada faces a US base tariff of 35%, the rate doesn’t apply to most Canadian goods because of an exemption for products and shipments made within the rules of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement. The US, Mexico and Canada are set to undergo a previously planned review of their USMCA trade agreement next year.
House Republican leaders so far have blocked votes in the chamber on efforts to roll back Trump’s tariffs, though a small group of GOP lawmakers waged a short-lived revolt over the president’s trade policies in September.
Speaker Mike Johnson made clear to reporters he is deferring to Trump on all trade matters and in no mood to bring up bills challenging the president on the issue. Earlier this year he delayed a fight over the legality of Trump’s tariffs until at least the end of January.
Johnson said Wednesday that the president is at work negotiating “dozens” of trade agreements and his efforts have been a “great success.”
