Senate Votes to Nullify Trump's Canada Tariffs

The Senate passed legislation Wednesday that would nullify US tariffs on Canada. The move comes just as President Trump is engaged in trade talks in Asia as well as an increasingly bitter trade spat with Canada, one of America's largest economic partners, the AP reports. The 50-46 tally was the latest in a series of votes this week to terminate the national emergencies that Trump has used to impose tariffs.

• The Senate passed a similar resolution applying to Brazilian tariffs on Tuesday, and it passed an earlier resolution on Canadian imports in April. The same four Republicans—Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and Rand Paul of Kentucky—voted again with all Democrats to approve the Wednesday resolution applying to Canada.

• The resolutions are largely symbolic and won't ultimately take effect. House Republicans have passed new rules that allow leaders to prevent such resolutions from getting a vote in that chamber, and Trump could veto the legislation even if it did clear Congress. They have, however, proven to be an effective way for Democrats to expose cracks between the president's trade policy and GOP senators who have historically supported free trade arguments. Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, the Democrat pushing the resolutions, said that higher prices caused by tariffs would force Republicans to break with Trump.
• Kaine warned that Trump's use of emergency power meant to be for "unusual and extraordinary" circumstances was setting a dangerous precedent, the Washington Post reports. The president "has stretched this notion of emergency far beyond the language of the statute," he said. "If President Trump can name anything as an emergency, so can any president henceforth."
• Sen. Mike Crapo, the Republican chair of the Senate Committee on Finance, acknowledged in a floor speech that many "may be nervous about what comes next" as Trump remakes global trade. But he urged Congress to stay out of the way. "Let's truly get a balanced, fair playing field in trade," Crapo added.
• Yet there is increasing tension between GOP senators and the president over how soybean farmers have suffered from the trade war with China, as well as his administration's plans to allow the purchase of more beef from Argentina.

• Trump said earlier this week he wanted to impose another 10% tariff hike on imports of Canadian goods because of an anti-tariff television ad aired by the province of Ontario. The television ad used the words of Ronald Reagan to criticize US tariffs.
• Kaine argued in a floor speech that Trump's trade policy was actually hinging on his personal feelings. He claimed that Trump had "such thin skin that an ad on television quoting Ronald Reagan" had prompted an end to the negotiations. He asked, "How about that as a rationale for trade policy?"
• On Tuesday, McConnell warned of "avoidable harm" from tariffs. "Tariffs make both building and buying in America more expensive," the Republican said, per the Post. "The economic harms of trade wars are not the exception to history, but the rule. And no cross-eyed reading of Reagan will reveal otherwise."