Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski dared to defy their party 

Four Republican Senators recently worked with their Democratic colleagues to pass a bill that would end President Trump’s tariffs on Canadian goods. 

A couple months back, President Trump declared a national emergency at the northern border in response to fentanyl trafficking, allowing him to impose tariffs on Canada with no input from Congress.  

President Trump imposed a 25 percent tariff on most Canadian goods, with a lower rate of 10 percent for oil and other “energy resources.”  

After decades of Congress handing over tariff powers to the White House, some Senators decided this week to take a stand. Senate Democrats, led by Tim Kaine of Virginia, introduced a bill to overturn the emergency at the border, which would also end the tariffs on Canadian goods.  

Four Republicans – Senators Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mitch McConnell, and Rand Paul – joined with Democrats to pass the bill, a rebuke of President Trump’s tariff policies.  

Predictably, the four Republicans were punished for being brave enough to defy their party. President Trump called them “extremely difficult to deal with and unbelievably disloyal,” urging voters in their states to “get them to FINALLY adhere to Republican Values and Ideals.”  

For Senators Collins and Murkowski, it’s not their first time being on the President’s bad side. President Trump has called Collins “absolutely atrocious” and said she couldn’t have won without him, despite her doing 7 points better than him in Maine in 2020. The President also vowed he would spend 2022 “in Alaska campaigning against a disloyal and very bad Senator [Murkowski].” Senator Murkowski went on to win by 7 points.  

The Senate-passed bill will almost certainly die in the House, but it served as a much-needed morale boost for legislators who want to do something about tariffs.  

Senate Democrats are planning to force more votes on President Trump’s tariffs in the coming days. And Senator Chuck Grassley, a Republican and the president pro tempore of the Senate, is leading a bipartisan bill that would require Congress to vote on any new tariffs, which fellow Republican Senator Thom Tillis is “inclined” to support.  

All this legislation is unlikely to pass in the near future. But could this be the start of a new era of Congress – one where lawmakers reclaim their Constitutional authority over tariffs and other powers that they’ve delegated to the President? 

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