The US Senate has passed a resolution which would thwart Donald Trump’s ability to impose tariffs on Canada, hours after the president unveiled sweeping plans to clamp down on international trade.
The resolution, passed by a 51-48 vote, would end Mr Trump’s emergency declaration on fentanyl which underpins tariffs on Canada. The president announced orders earlier on Wednesday — his so-called Liberation Day — to impose import taxes on a slew of international trading partners, although Canadian imports were spared from new taxes.
The Senate’s legislation has little chance of passing the Republican-controlled House and being signed by Mr Trump, but it showed the limits of Republican support for his vision of remaking the US economy by restricting free trade.
Many economists are warning the plan could cause an economic contraction and Republican senators are already watching with unease as Mr Trump upends the United States’ relationship with the rest of the world.
The president singled out the four Republicans — senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Rand Paul of Kentucky — who voted in favour of the resolution.
In a social media post just before 1am on Wednesday, Mr Trump said the four “will hopefully get on the Republican bandwagon, for a change, and fight the Democrats wild and flagrant push to not penalize Canada for the sale, into our Country, of large amounts of Fentanyl”.
To justify the tariffs, Mr Trump has argued that Canada is not doing enough to stop illegal drugs from entering the northern border. Customs and Border Protection seized 43lb of fentanyl in its northern border sector during the 2024 fiscal year and since January, authorities have seized less than 1.5lb, according to federal data. At the southern border, authorities seized more than 21,000lb last year.
“This is not about fentanyl. It’s about tariffs. It’s about a national sales tax on American families,” senator Tim Kaine, the Virginia Democrat who initiated the resolution, said at a news conference on Wednesday.
Democrats argued Mr Trump is using the tariffs to pay for tax cuts which would benefit the wealthy, but will make it more expensive to build homes, disrupt industries and raise prices on imported grocery products. Mr Kaine pointed to aluminium imported from Canada that is used by businesses ranging from pie makers to shipbuilders.
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, centre, speaks at the US Capitol (Scott Applewhite/AP)
“Today, Donald Trump takes a sledgehammer to the American economy and even to the American dream,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said in a floor speech.
On the heels of election results in Wisconsin and Florida which delivered early warning signs to Republicans about the popularity of Mr Trump’s agenda, Mr Schumer said the president is particularly vulnerable when it comes to the economy.
“Once the American people say, ‘I don’t want to embrace somebody, I don’t want to vote for somebody, I don’t want to support somebody who embraces Trump’s policies,’ things are going to change,” he told reporters. “Public sentiment is everything.”
At the White House on Wednesday, Mr Trump singled out Canada as a beneficiary of “unfair” trading practices with the US, although his latest order did not add to tariffs already in place on Canada and Mexico.
“Why are we doing this? I mean, at what point do we say, ‘You’ve got to work for yourselves and you’ve got to’? This is why we have the big deficits,” Mr Trump said.
MAKE AMERICA WEALTHY AGAIN! 💰
"This is one of the most important days... in American history; it's our Declaration of Economic Independence. For years, hard-working American citizens were forced to sit on the sidelines... But now it's our time to prosper." – @POTUS 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/mKsAKIOtsp
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) April 2, 2025
After his announcement, representative Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he would also force a similar vote in the House on the tariffs.
“Republicans can’t keep ducking this — it’s time they show whether they support the economic pain Trump is inflicting on their constituents,” he said on social media.
Republican leaders tried to hold their members in line against the tariff resolution by emphasising that Mr Trump was acting to address fentanyl trafficking and border security.
Majority whip senator John Barrasso argued in a floor speech that former president Joe Biden had “also thrown open the northern border. The criminal cartels noticed and they took advantage”.
“There are unique threats to the United States at our northern border,” the Wyoming senator said. “President Trump is taking the bold, decisive, swift action that is necessary to secure that border as well.”
While a younger group of Republicans closely aligned with Mr Trump have spoken out in favour of the president’s plans to aggressively reshape the economy, a sizeable portion of the Republican conference voiced concerns about the tariff impacts on farmers and other industries. Most wanted to give Mr Trump room to negotiate better trade deals.