The House Ways and Means Committee, after an all-night session on what it calls One Big Beautiful Bill, passed the tax cut bill along party lines on May 14.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., are asking the Trump administration to share more information about their negotiations with countries after the president imposed emergency tariffs on every country.
Rep. Young Kim, R-Calif., introduced a bill to require notification of Congress and provide justification for tariffs enacted through presidential action.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., are teaming to introduce a bill called the Truth in Tariffs Act.
Under aggressive questioning from Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that exempting tariffs on car seats, cribs, high chairs and other essential baby items "is under consideration."
In more than two hours of House appropriators' questions for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, trade was barely touched on.
Four Democratic senators brought small business owners to Congress for a press conference May 5 to condemn harm from President Donald Trump's tariffs and to announce legislation to create a tariff exemption for small businesses.
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz told commerce deputy secretary nominee Paul Dabbar that, as "an experienced dealmaker," he hopes Dabbar will help to secure "freer and fairer trade with our allies, not across-the-board protectionism" -- and to also argue for that approach.
Ahead of a late afternoon vote to end the trade deficit emergency that the president used to impose 10% tariffs on all countries other than Canada and Mexico, and used to impose 125% tariffs on Chinese imports, resolution co-sponsor Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said all Democrats will be voting in favor of "rolling back Donald Trump's ability to use an emergency declaration to play 'Red Light, Green Light' with tariffs and wreck our economy. The question is, how many Republicans will join us?"
William Kimmitt, nominee for undersecretary of commerce for international trade, advanced out of the Senate Finance Committee on a party-line vote April 29.