The Senate is poised Wednesday evening to overturn the emergency declaration used by President Donald Trump to invoke Canadian tariffs.
It is a bipartisan rebuke that would mark the greatest policy blemish of Trump’s second term and come just hours after he is set to announce new import taxes on what he has dubbed “Liberation Day” to impose more sweeping tariffs on a host of countries.
At least four Republican senators — Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Rand Paul (R-KY), Susan Collins (R-ME), and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) — are primed to break rank and support a privileged measure from Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) that the GOP-led chamber is forced to vote on. It requires only a simple majority and would roll back Trump’s declared fentanyl emergency used to impose a 25% tariff on Canada.
Collins, whose state borders Canada and is a major trade partner, said Maine’s economy is “integrated with Canada” and that tariffs would cause wide-ranging price hikes that would be “detrimental to many Maine families and our local economies.”
“I share the president’s goal of stemming the tide of dangerous fentanyl that flows into the United States,” Collins said in a floor speech, noting she supports certain tariffs against Mexico and China. “I do not, however, agree with his invoking the powers of the [International Emergency Economic Powers Act] to impose tariffs on Canadian goods and products.”
The measure would not do much to change policy aside from sending a political message to the president. The GOP-led House has prevented the ability to force votes to terminate Trump’s declaration. And even if the House did line up with the Senate and vote to roll it back, Congress would lack a veto-proof majority.
Still, the episode will mark the first significant policy revolt in Trump’s second term over trade policies that have caused much angst in the GOP about the rising costs of goods from sweeping tariffs, including against longtime trade allies Mexico and Canada.
The saga has also irked Trump.
He directed his ire at the GOP quartet prepared to side with Democrats in a Truth Social post around 1 a.m. Wednesday. He accused the Republicans of “playing with the lives of the American people, and right into the hands of the Radical Left Democrats and Drug Cartels.”
“Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Rand Paul, also of Kentucky, will hopefully get on the Republican bandwagon, for a change, and fight the Democrats wild and flagrant push to not penalize Canada for the sale, into our Country, of large amounts of Fentanyl, by Tariffing the value of this horrible and deadly drug in order to make it more costly to distribute and buy,” the president posted.
Trump called for constituents to contact the senators so they will “FINALLY adhere to Republican Values and Ideals.”
“They have been extremely difficult to deal with and, unbelievably disloyal to hardworking Majority Leader John Thune, and the Republican Party itself,” Trump added.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was set to join Senate Republicans at lunch Wednesday to lobby them against the anti-tariff resolution.
Collins, a centrist, is among the most vulnerable Senate Republicans up for reelection next year.
McConnell’s office declined to comment, and Murkowski did not respond to a request for comment.
Paul, much like McConnell, has emerged in Trump’s second term as a conservative contrarian unafraid to buck the president.
“Taxes, under the Constitution, are supposed to originate in the House, then come to the Senate,” Paul said. “But they’re certainly not to be passed by a president, with only the president voting in favor of them, and no vote by Congress.”
WHICH ITEMS WOULD BE AFFECTED BY TRUMP’S PROPOSED TARIFFS ON CANADA AND MEXICO
Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-WY) urged colleagues to rebuff Kaine’s anti-tariff measure, which he said would “undermine the work that the United States and Canada are doing to secure the northern border.”
“Fortunately, for the safety of the American people, the House of Representatives will not take up this legislation, if it even passes the Senate,” Barrasso said. “Never going to make it to President Trump’s desk.”