22 hours ago
4
You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.
A measure to cancel some Canadian tariffs is all but certain to stall in the House. But with a handful of Republicans in favor, the vote sent a signal of opposition to the levies.
- April 2, 2025Updated 7:49 p.m. ET
The Senate on Wednesday approved a measure that would block some of the tariffs President Trump has imposed on Canada, with a handful of Republicans joining Democrats to pass a resolution that would halt levies set to take effect this week.
The measure is all but certain to stall in the House, where G.O.P. leaders have moved preemptively to shut down any move to end Mr. Trump’s tariffs. But Senate passage of the measure on a vote of 51 to 48 — just hours after Mr. Trump unveiled sweeping tariffs on more than 100 trading partners, including the European Union, China, Britain and India — sent a signal of bipartisan congressional opposition to the president’s trade war.
The resolution targets the emergency powers Mr. Trump invoked in February to impose sweeping tariffs on Canada, a move that has rattled markets and drawn bipartisan criticism from lawmakers concerned about the economic impact on their states and districts.
Mr. Trump imposed the tariffs in an executive order that cited the International Economic Emergency Powers Act, a Cold War-era law that has most often been used to impose sanctions on rogue states and human rights violators. His administration argued that unchecked drug trafficking from Canada constituted a dire threat to American national security and used it as justification to unilaterally impose 25 percent tariffs on America’s closest trading partner.
“The president has justified the imposition of these tariffs on, in my view, a made-up emergency,” said Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia and the lead sponsor of the resolution. “The fentanyl emergency is from Mexico and China. It’s not from Canada.”
The resolution, cosponsored by two fellow Democrats, Senators Mark Warner of Virginia and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, seeks to revoke the emergency declaration and, with it, Mr. Trump’s ability to enforce the tariffs set to go into effect on Wednesday.
