Not even President Donald Trump seems to know exactly what winning a trade war with the world will look like, but Republican senators hope he figures it out quickly.
Trump has already laid out a long-term vision: To bring manufacturing to the United States. If that’s truly his goal, the new tariffs would theoretically be here to stay. But Trump has also celebrated how many countries are trying to negotiate with him over the tariffs, meaning they could be a short-term policy intended to win concessions instead.
“There can be permanent tariffs and there could also be negotiations, because there are things that we need beyond tariffs,” Trump said on Monday, not clarifying the matter very much.
For now, Republicans in Congress are urging patience.
“We’ve got to let it play out and see what ultimately happens, not only in the near term but in the long term,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters Monday night. “And I think the administration — my expectation would be that they’ll, as they examine it, make some decisions too about how to implement that policy long term.”
“We’ve got to give the president some room to work here,” Sen. Josh Hawley echoed to NOTUS. “It’s been three days.”
Some Republican senators really hope Trump’s path to a fast victory will be through striking trade deals.
“What I’m urging is for the president to come and make major deals and make them quickly,” Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said in his podcast “Verdict” on Monday. “I would love it if this week, this week, we had an announcement from the president: ‘This major country came in, they offered huge concessions, they slashed their tariffs and we’re slashing ours.’ That would be a great outcome.”
Sen. Mike Lee, a Utah Republican, has also urged Trump to strike deals, presenting his best-case scenario over the weekend: “What will Trump’s haters do if his tariff play brings country after country to the negotiating table, resulting in bilateral trade agreements that make U.S. trade more free than ever?”
American importers usually pay tariff fees, not foreign companies, effectively making these new rates a tax hike. Tariffs can incentivize companies to use different suppliers, potentially domestic ones rather than foreign companies, but only if domestic manufacturing capacity exists for a given product. If it doesn’t, supply chain disruption, higher costs and economic strain often follow. Companies typically pass on increased costs from tariffs to consumers in the form of higher prices.
GOP senators recognize how that kind of upheaval can hurt their constituents, and how negotiating deals quickly could calm antsy markets.
“It seems to me like he’s getting a positive reaction from our trading partners who seem to be eager to go to zero on tariffs,” Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, told reporters Monday. “That’s a great objective.”
“Volatility obviously is concerning,” Cornyn said. “The sooner they’re over, the better for everybody, including the United States.”
Cornyn doesn’t seem to see a role for Congress in ending the volatility. He answered with a firm “no” when asked by reporters on Monday if he would support a bipartisan bill to subject new tariffs to congressional review.
“Congress has delegated way too much authority to the executive generally, but that really applies to all the stuff that President Biden did,” Cornyn said. “At this point, it’s not going to change the outcome because there’s no way to pass a veto-proof bill, and that doesn’t do anything on the front end to prevent the president from doing tariffs.”
Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin also said he won’t support the legislation. “I don’t think we need to do that,” he told reporters. “Congress moves too slow. The economy moves fast.”
Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the lead Republican sponsor of the bill, has long been skeptical of tariffs. He’s won over six of his GOP colleagues to support the legislation so far: former majority leader Mitch McConnell, as well as Sens. Jerry Moran, Lisa Murkowski, Thom Tillis, Todd Young and Susan Collins.
“They’re forcing people to the table,” Tillis told NOTUS on Monday night of Trump’s plan. “I just — it’s so many agreements all at once. The question is, how many of them get done?”
Rep. Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican, plans to introduce companion legislation in the House to roll back Trump’s tariffs, but he faces an uphill climb to get it passed. He’s one of only a few in that chamber to openly criticize the president’s moves.
Murkowski dismissed arguments from her colleagues that Trump just needs more time to accomplish his plan.
“My reasoning signing on was as much about the Senate’s responsibility as it is the issue of tariffs and the impacts,” she told reporters. “Obviously I’m concerned about increased prices. But believe it or not, I’m actually more concerned about a Congress that kind of steps back or away from its own authorities as set out in the Constitution.”
“It’s telling that there were more Republicans that have been added on as recently, I think, as today,” she said of the bill.
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Ursula Perano and Haley Byrd Wilt are reporters at NOTUS. Helen Huiskes is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.