(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump on Tuesday called on the Senate to keep the United States’ tariffs on Canada in place — hours before Democrats in the upper chamber could potentially force a vote aimed at blocking the president from imposing tariffs on the ally country.
Democratic Sens. Tim Kaine, Amy Klobuchar and Mark Warner are leading the effort to end the international emergency — which Kaine has called a “made up emergency” — that Trump has declared against Canada, thereby shunting his administration’s authority to unilaterally impose tariffs. Trump has derived his authority to impose tariffs by declaring a national emergency caused by the flow of fentanyl and undocumented migration from Canada, Mexico and China. But Democrats are now challenging that emergency status.
“President Trump is saying that there is an emergency with Canada. Canada is a friend not an adversary. Canada is a sovereign nation not a 51st state,” Kaine said on Tuesday.
It comes just one day before Trump’s tariffs on Canada are expected to go into effect as part of “Liberation Day” — the president’s plans to roll out sweeping tariffs that he has said will impact “all countries.”
On Tuesday, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney vowed to respond with retaliatory tariffs if Trump slaps additional levies on Canadian goods as part of Wednesday’s expected tariff announcement.
Trump said in a social media post that the U.S. is “making progress to end this terrible Fentanyl Crisis” that he claims is coming from Canada, and said that “Republicans in the Senate MUST vote to keep the National Emergency in place, so we can finish the job, and end the scourge.”
During a press conference on Tuesday, Democrats argued that Trump is falsely imposing an emergency in order to give cover for the tariffs with hopes of raising revenue to pay for his tax cut plan. That’s why they say this vote is so important.
Trump criticized Kaine for his role in the effort to block tariffs.
“Don’t let the Democrats have a Victory. It would be devastating for the Republican Party and, far more importantly, for the United States,” Trump wrote.
Unlike most legislation in the Senate, this resolution will only need a simple majority of votes to pass, and it very likely may. Only a handful of Republicans would be needed to hit that threshold.
But there is nothing compelling the House, controlled by Republicans, to take up the legislation, and it’s almost certain that House Speaker Mike Johnson would stay far away from the resolution.
The Senate vote could get pushed to Wednesday as Sen. Cory Booker continues a filibuster he started at 7 p.m. Monday night. Booker is protesting against the national “crisis” he said Trump and Elon Musk created.
A number of Republicans have expressed skepticism about Canadian tariffs and now find themselves in a difficult place of having to choose whether to block Trump’s authority or cast a vote to try to forestall the tariffs.
Majority Leader John Thune said Monday that he’s unsure whether they’ll be able to defeat the resolution.
“We’ll see,” he said. “Obviously, as you know, and I’m among these, there is concerns about tariffs on Canada and, you know, what the ultimate objective is. If it’s about fentanyl and stopping the drug trade, drug war, that’s an issue obviously that there is a lot of interest. Obviously we want to give the president as much latitude as possible to deal with specific problems like that, but as you know, I’m in a very different place when it comes to across-the-board tariffs and Canada.”
Thune said on Tuesday that he hopes “we’ll have the votes.”
“The president declared the emergency to deal with the issue of fentanyl — flow of fentanyl into this country, not only from our southern border, but also from our north. That’s what the emergency declaration is about. And what this would do is undo that,” he said. “I think the president needs to have tools at his disposal to deal with what I think are national emergencies. And certainly, you know, the tens of thousands of people that are killed in this country every year, because fentanyl represents that. So I hope we’ll have the votes.”
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