Vote to End Trade Deficit Emergency Failed
The Senate had a tie vote, 49-49, as it took up the question of revoking the trade deficit emergency President Donald Trump declared, which underpins his decision to put 10% tariffs on every country except Canada, Mexico and China, and 125% on China.
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Two absences likely led to the failure, as Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., and Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., didn't vote the evening of April 30. Both had voted to revoke the Northern border emergency underpinning tariffs on Canadian goods. Neither resolution can be brought up again for six months.
However, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, one of the sponsors of the resolution, defended the decision to go forward with the vote, which he said was tied to Trump's 100th day in office. "It was a win-win either way," he told reporters at a press conference at the Capitol May 1. "If you won the vote, it was a good win, like [we] won the Canada [emergency] vote," he said, adding that Democrats believed even when they lost, the vote was still one that would tie Republicans to Trump's tariff policy.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, voted with Democrats to end the reciprocal tariffs; all other Republicans present voted to support the trade deficit emergency declaration. Eighteen Republicans who voted to continue the emergency are up for re-election in 2026, and Schumer said this vote means they "kept these onerous tariffs on the backs of the American people. And so Republicans own it. They own it now, they're stuck."
He noted that the House speaker has prevented that chamber from having a say on all these tariff-justifying emergencies. "It shows they know how unpopular the tariffs are," he said. He said Democrats won't let them duck the topic. "Republicans in the Senate and the House are complicit," he said. "They are co-conspirators, and they own everything Trump is doing."
When asked if waiting a month or so for the economic fallout would have brought more Republicans onboard to end the tariffs, Schumer scoffed that Republicans who say their patience is limited on tariffs really mean it. Of Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., Schumer said, "He's always saying 'I'm going to do something in the future,'" but he falls in line with Trump's policies (see 2505010009).
Schumer said Democrats will have the opportunity to offer amendment votes when the Senate takes up a tax and spending bill to extend Trump's tax cuts, and there will be proposals to undo the tariffs then. "We'll see how they vote," he said.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., the lone Republican sponsor of the resolution to end the trade deficit emergency, also defended the timing of the vote in a brief hallway interview at the Capitol. "I think we're actually winning," he said, noting that the president backed off of 25% auto tariffs.
(The president spared USMCA-compliant parts and said some other parts will not be taxed, if they are destined for U.S. assembly plants, but 25% tariffs on imported vehicles remain.)
When the continuing tariff on finished cars was pointed out, Paul said, "Well, he's backing off some. And I think the more fulsome the debate is, the better chance we have of getting him to back off."