US Senate votes to rescind some Trump tariffs, with GOP support

WASHINGTON – The Senate on April 2 approved a measure that would block some of

the tariffs President Donald Trump has imposed on Canada,

with a handful of Republicans joining Democrats to pass a resolution that would halt levies set to take effect this week.

The measure is all but certain to stall in the House, where GOP leaders have moved preemptively to shut down any move to end Mr Trump’s tariffs.

But Senate passage of the measure on a vote of 51-48 – just hours after Mr Trump unveiled sweeping tariffs on more than 100 trading partners, including the European Union, China, Britain and India – sent a signal of bipartisan congressional opposition to the president’s trade war.

The resolution targets the emergency powers Mr Trump invoked in February to impose tariffs on Canada, a move that has rattled markets and drawn bipartisan criticism from lawmakers concerned about the economic impact on their states and districts.

Mr Trump imposed the tariffs in an executive order that cited the International Economic Emergency Powers Act, a Cold War-era law that has most often been used to impose sanctions on rogue states and human rights violators.

His administration argued that unchecked drug trafficking from Canada constituted a dire threat to US national security and used it as justification to unilaterally impose 25 per cent tariffs on America’s closest trading partner.

“The president has justified the imposition of these tariffs on, in my view, a made-up emergency,” said Senator Tim Kaine from Virginia, a Demorcrat who is the lead sponsor of the resolution.

“The fentanyl emergency is from Mexico and China. It’s not from Canada.”

The resolution, co-sponsored by two fellow Democrats, Senator Mark Warner of Virginia and Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, seeks to revoke the emergency declaration and, with it, Mr Trump’s ability to enforce the tariffs set to go into effect on April 2.

Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky was the lone Republican sponsor of the resolution.

But three other GOP senators who have expressed unease about the potential economic consequences of Mr Trump’s trade measures joined him in support – Ms Susan Collins of Maine, Ms Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Mr Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

“Tariffs are a terrible mistake,” Mr Paul said ahead of the vote. “They don’t work. They will lead to higher prices.”

Mr Paul also argued that the emergency powers Mr Trump used to justify the tariffs were an inappropriate circumventing of powers granted to Congress, not the president. NYTIMES