Senate Democrats Call Trade Deals 'a Raw Deal'
On the eve of more tariff hikes, four prominent Senate Democrats decried what they said were so-called deals -- or, as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer put it, "a raw deal for the American people."
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Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., a longtime advocate of free trade, said during a press conference, "When the administration talks about how much revenue is coming from these tariffs, the revenue is coming right out of the pockets of Americans. Don't be fooled. The parade of handshakes, press releases is meant to distract from the very real possibility the Federal Court of Appeals will rule that the Trump administration does not -- never had -- the legal authority to unilaterally raise taxes on imports without coming to Congress first."
If the courts don't stop the emergency tariffs, it will be up to Congress to do so. The vote to end the tariffs on Canada over migration and fentanyl drew four Republican votes, so it passed the Senate, but these bills would need veto-proof majorities in both chambers to succeed.
When asked by International Trade Today whether more than four Republicans would join Democrats to roll back emergencies underlying higher tariffs on countries around the world, Cantwell said she thinks so.
"Because my Republican colleagues have said, let's see the deals," she said. She added that not only are the market-opening gains in the handshake deals unknown, "I just think they don't represent the scope of what my [Republican] colleagues" had in mind.
She noted that in the first Trump administration, Chinese retaliation against farmers led the administration to ask Congress to spend billions "to make our farmers whole."
“So, I think as these details of these deals become clear to them, I think they probably, you probably will hear more from them,” she said.
Cantwell introduced a bill with Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, in early April (see 2504030018), which would prevent long-term tariffs under sections 232, 301 and 338 or the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. If that bill became law, tariffs imposed by the president would expire after 60 days unless Congress were to approve them. In addition to Republican Sens. Mitch McConnell, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski -- all supporters of the Canada resolution -- Sens. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., Thom Tillis, R-N.C., and Todd Young, R-Ind., signed on in the first week.
Schumer, D-N.Y., mocked the deals, saying the investment and purchase promises are exaggerations, and the 15% tariffs drive up costs for Americans, who had been able to import from those countries at an average tariff of 1% to 2% before Trump's actions.
"In some cases, Trump is claiming commitments from these countries that they didn't make. We still don't know what the agreement with Vietnam includes. Neither did they. They said that Trump claimed a deal nearly a month ago, but neither side agrees on what he agreed to in Vietnam. So what is this chaos? Our businesses, our small businesses, our medium-sized businesses, our large businesses, need some degree of certainty, and all they're getting is chaos and inflation," he said.
Senate Finance Committee ranking member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., agreed: "With these agreements, and some of them, I can tell you, are not much more than a napkin with a few lines squiggled on it, are not opening up markets for our farmers and manufacturers."