Rand Paul, Republican Senators Bash Trump Tariffs

President Donald Trump’s tariff regime goes into effect at midnight on Tuesday, and some Republican lawmakers can barely contain how much they hate it. As markets crater, and tensions escalate between the United States and its most important trade partners, elected Republicans must be realizing that they will be among the first to feel the backlash from voters. 

Few have been as vocal about what they think of the president’s protectionist policies as Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who has already introduced legislation aiming to curb Trump’s tariff powers.

On Tuesday, Paul unloaded on the White House’s logic during an interview on CNBC. “It’s based on a fallacy […] that somehow in a trade, someone must lose. That somehow when you trade with someone, there’s a loser and someone’s taking advantage of you, and China’s ripping you off, or Japan’s ripping you off. It’s absolutely a fallacy,” Paul said. “Every trade that occurs in the marketplace is mutually beneficial. If you have a free society — and I trade with you — If you want to sell me your coat, and I give you $200 for it, we both agree to it. We’re both happy with the trade.” 

“You can have this artificial accounting, and it makes it look like a bad thing, but you have to ask yourself, is trade good or bad,” Paul added. 

Paul’s colleagues in the Senate were given a chance to grill Trump trade representative Jamieson Greer over the tariffs on Tuesday. In one particularly striking moment, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) raised what he described as an aphorism from his days in management consulting: “Whose throat do I get to choke if this proves to be wrong?”

“When you’re finally taking a look at a strategy someone has to own it — and you can’t say that it’s the President or the Vice President,” Tillis said. “I’m assuming this all got gamed out because, because it’s a novel approach, it needed to be thought out. Whose throat do I get to choke if this proves to be wrong?”

Tillis has also indicated his support for legislation submitted by Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) that would give Congress increased oversight over the president’s tariff authority. The White House has said Trump would veto the legislation should it pass through Congress.

On Monday, Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) criticized the White House’s messaging strategy on tariffs, telling reporters that members of the Trump administration “went on television this weekend and all offered different scenarios. “

“It just seemed to me that they ought to talk to each other, and, more importantly, talk to their boss,” he added. Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.), and Mike Crapo (R-Ida.) have also expressed skepticism of the plan. Sen. Paul implied on Tuesday that there are plenty more Republicans who oppose it, but who are unwilling to do so publicly. “It’s a quiet whisper,” he told CNBC. “People come up to me in the hall and say, ‘Free trade is good, keep going.’ But they don’t want to say it because of the politics of it.”

Some of the most powerful members of Congress seem resigned to the reality that nothing will move the president from his warpath. On Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader John Thune — who has previously expressed skepticism over protectionist economic policies — told reporters that while “everybody kind of knows my views on tariffs,” but that Trump “ran on this.” 

“Seventy seven million people voted for him and his agenda,” Thune added. “I think he deserves the opportunity to see what kind of deals he can get from some of our trading partners. And I think most of us are giving him the space in which to do that and hope that he is successful.”