WASHINGTON ― The U.S. Senate was on track to adopt a resolution disapproving of President Donald Trump’s global tariffs on Wednesday, but the measure failed after two lawmakers ― one Democrat and one Republican ― missed the vote.
Had Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who was returning from a climate conference in South Korea, and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), another critic of Trump’s tariffs, been present, the effort likely would have passed, dealing another rebuke to the White House’s erratic trade policies that have rattled financial markets, sapped consumer confidence, and put the economy on the precipice of a recession.
But the vote failed 49-49. It came just two weeks after another effort seeking to terminate Trump’s emergency powers to levy tariffs on Canada, a U.S. ally, was approved with the support of both Whitehouse and McConnell.
The attempts to block Trump’s tariffs are largely symbolic, however, since the GOP-controlled House of Representatives is refusing to allow a similar vote in that chamber.
Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Rand Paul joined every member of the Democratic caucus in voting for the resolution on Wednesday. The overwhelming majority of Republicans stuck by Trump and voted to sustain his trade policy even after a new report from the U.S. Commerce Department found the U.S. economy actually shrank in the first three months of 2025, the first decline since the first quarter of 2022.
Earlier this month, in a stunning reversal on his initial tariff scheme, Trump slapped 10% tariffs on everything Americans buy from overseas, and 125% tariffs on everything they buy from China. He has promised even higher tariffs in July on products from nearly five dozen countries as part of his goal of rebalancing international trade and rebuilding U.S. manufacturing.
Top Trump officials have claimed that dozens of countries have approached the U.S. seeking to ink trade deals that would, at least theoretically, make the tariffs on their nations go away. The Trump administration has yet to reveal one, and lawmakers of both parties are losing patience.
“Many products from China won’t even be available soon, thanks to the tariffs,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a lead Democratic sponsor of Wednesday’s resolution. “For the products that are still available, prices are going up, a fact that Trump is desperate to hide. When Amazon was rumored to list the impact of tariffs on prices, Trump threw a fit, reportedly threatening Jeff Bezos and calling it a hostile act. God forbid Americans know the real cost of tariffs.”
Paul, meanwhile, argued that Congress needs to reassert its constitutional authority over trade that it has delegated over decades to the executive branch by allowing presidents to levy tariffs unilaterally under a national emergency.
“I still support the president on many things but I am not for a country run by emergencies ― even if the person were doing everything I wanted [like] making every day my birthday. I would not be for that unless we deliberated on that,” Paul said in a Wednesday speech on the Senate floor. “The Constitution does not allow the president of the United States to be the sole decider,” he added.
The Kentucky Republican, a libertarian-leaning voice in the Senate, further chided the House of Representatives for making a procedural move to effectively block any House effort to cancel Trump’s tariffs despite several Republicans offering legislation to do so.
“They declared that legislative days will not exist despite the legislature continuing to meet every day. The House has essentially ruled that days are not days,” Paul said. “Does that sound absurd? Absolutely, it’s absurd. It is craven, it is cowardice, and it is dishonest.”
“We have congressional timidity,” he lamented. “It’s a recipe for disaster.”
Trump, meanwhile, has shown no signs of letting up on the tariffs ― which are effectively taxes paid by U.S. consumers ― even as he has granted exceptions to certain large corporations. During a Wednesday meeting with his Cabinet, the president said that children in the U.S. may just have to live with fewer toys if store shelves go empty.
“Much of it we don’t need,” he said of goods coming from China. “Somebody said, ‘Oh the shelves are gonna be empty.’ Well maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, and maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally.”
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