Senate Democrats, with the help of four Republicans, adopted a resolution on Wednesday aimed at blocking President Trump’s tariffs on Canadian imports.
The resolution, which was authored by Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), was largely symbolic, as House Republicans are unlikely to push back on Trump over his tariff policy.
Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Rand Paul of Kentucky joined Democrats to support the measure that would end the national emergency the president declared earlier this year that justified his tariff policy on Canadian imports.
Trump issued a warning to these Republicans ahead of the vote, urging them to side with their party for once.
“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," he said on Truth Social. "They are playing with the lives of the American people, and right into the hands of the Radical Left Democrats and Drug Cartels. The Senate Bill is just a ploy of the Dems to show and expose the weakness of certain Republicans, namely these four, in that it is not going anywhere because the House will never approve it and I, as your President, will never sign it.”
On the Senate floor, Collins explained her position.
“Of course I share the president’s goal of stemming the tide of dangerous fentanyl that flows into the U.S. I commend him for taking far stronger actions to halt this dangerous and deadly flow than did the previous administration,” she said. “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 fact is, the vast majority of fentanyl in America comes from the southern border.”
Paul shared his concerns on the Senate floor as well:
My speech today https://t.co/e3Pd6pXqTd
— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) April 3, 2025
Murkowski, meanwhile, has argued “the tariffs on Canada are going to hurt my state. It’s going to hurt our neighbors there.”
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