Senate Republicans urged Donald Trump’s trade chief to negotiate deals with world leaders in a hearing on Capitol Hill Tuesday morning, signaling, albeit gently, that they are eager for an end game in the president’s market-roiling trade war.
Senate Finance Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) opened the hearing by pressing U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on the administration’s “objective” for his sweeping “reciprocal tariffs” that are scheduled to go into effect first thing Wednesday, saying he hoped the goal was expanding trade and opening up markets for American exporters.
Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) asked for a timeline of how long the tariffs will be in effect. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) emphasized trade deficits weren’t always bad. Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) said he was concerned about inflation. Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) tried to pin down whether there is any way of measuring whether the tariffs are working. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said he didn’t understand the logic of the administration’s strategy.
“I’m just trying to figure out whose throat I get to choke if it’s wrong, and who I put up on a platform and thank them for the novel approach that was successful if they’re right,” Tillis said.
Greer provided little clarity for Republicans grasping for assurances that the Trump administration was actually seeking to open new markets. While Trump has signaled that he’s moving forward with negotiations with some Asian countries, Greer gave little indication that the administration will be able to strike any deals before high tariff rates for more than 50 countries and the EU kick in at midnight.
He said the ultimate goal was to produce more goods in America, but that he also hoped to open new markets and bring more revenue into U.S. government coffers. He said some countries would face tariffs for the next four years, others may be able to negotiate them away. He said the tariffs would help to create new jobs, but then acknowledged that many of the new factories would depend on automation.
“It’s going to be country by country. There are going to be some countries where they’re not able to address their non-tariff barriers or their tariffs or the deficit fully and there will be others who I think will be able to do that,” Greer said. “We need to reshore manufacturing, we need to get rid of our agricultural trade deficit and we need to make sure that if countries are going to trade with us, it needs to be on a reciprocal basis.”
Democrats seized on that uncertainty — which has unsettled the stock markets and sent businesses and world leaders scrambling — to argue that Trump is cratering the global economy.
“What is the plan?” asked Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). “In the past week, the White House has been all over the map when it comes to this question.”
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle pressed the Trump administration to establish a process so their constituents — many of them small businesses — could request exclusions from the tariffs so they can continue importing a product or input they need from overseas duty-free.
As Lankford noted, in the short-term many small businesses “don’t have a lot of options” for sourcing certain products in the U.S. “We don’t have a lot of garment manufacturing here in the United States,” he observed.
Greer repeatedly told senators that Trump has ruled out exclusions because he doesn’t want a “Swiss cheese” approach that could ruin the effectiveness of the tariffs.
Johnson told Greer he was “somewhat disappointed” by the answer because of the potentially dire consequences for some businesses.
“I hope you and the president are very sensitive about companies potentially going bankrupt by these actions,” Johnson said. “We want fair trade, but I hope you recognize tariffs are a double-edged sword, I would argue, a somewhat blunt instrument.”
Tillis, who is up for reelection next year, warned Greer that the “long-term” in politics is constrained by the fact that politicians have to run for reelection every two years. He sought assurances that the people who voted for Trump would still be happy this time next year.
“Every time we’ve talked about people having patience, we need to understand that the founding fathers made damn sure that that patience was never more than about 14 months, really,” Tillis said. How, he asked, are voters “going to be feeling on Groundhog Day 2026?”
Greer insisted that the policy was focused on “Main Street,” dismissing concerns about how Americans’ retirement accounts are affected by the steep drop in the stock market since they announced his trade policy.
“We’re not going to be in a situation where we keep allowing Wall Street to run the economy,” Greer said.
For Republicans in Congress, it amounted to some of their most forceful pushback yet on Trump’s trade policies, which they have largely defended or at least remained silent on up to this point. Even Tuesday, GOP lawmakers on the committee still couched their concerns with optimism that their trust in the administration would pay off.
“There’s hope that these tariffs are a means and are not solely an end,” Daines said. “And if that’s the case then I think we’re on a very good path to actually solve some of the problems and barriers that have been lingering on trade for decades.”
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