Lawmakers threatening action on Trump’s tariffs
WASHINGTON — Lawmakers are losing patience with the Trump administration’s reliance on tariffs to win trade disputes and are talking increasingly about legislative action to protect U.S. jobs.
A senior Republican senator has threatened legislation to curb President Donald Trump’s trade actions, and other senators joined him Wednesday in promising a complementary bill. Meanwhile, lawmakers are using congressional hearings to put the spotlight on the economic fallout for local farmers and businesses.
The prospects for any votes on trade legislation before the August recess are dim. Still, lawmakers appear to be putting the Trump administration on notice.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, the GOP chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said that if the administration continues “with its misguided and reckless reliance on tariffs,” he’ll push for legislation. His speech on the Senate floor served as a pointed warning to the administration not to move forward with tariffs on imported vehicles and auto parts on the grounds that they pose a threat to America’s national security.
Sens. Doug Jones, DAla., and Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., said the president’s proposed auto tariffs threaten tens of thousands of jobs in the South, where foreign automakers have invested heavily in recent decades.
They announced that they’ll introduce legislation as soon as next week that would freeze the Commerce Department’s investigation into whether auto imports present a national security threat. The bill would halt the department probe while the International Trade Commission conducts a study.
“These tariffs are dangerous,” Alexander said.
Lawmakers from farm country also sought to highlight concerns that retaliatory tariffs will dry up export markets as consum- ers in China, Europe and other places look elsewhere to buy soybeans, pork and other farm goods.
“Our farmers and our ranchers are being used as pawns in a trade war that I can guarantee you not one of them asked for,” Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., said on the Senate floor.
On the House side, a trade subcommittee heard from farm groups Wednesday. The same panel will examine next week the process that U.S. companies must go through to be excluded from the administration’s tariffs on imported steel and aluminum. No witnesses from the administration testified.
Kevin Paap, a corn and soybean farmer from Minnesota, said the tariffs are hitting farmers from all sides, increasing their costs at a time when prices for their products are falling.
“Agriculture is facing the perfect storm: trade uncertainties, decade lows in farm income, agricultural labor shortages and the uncompleted farm bill,” Paap said. “It’s quickly becoming more than we can handle.”