Senate votes to kill Trump’s Brazil tariff
Five Senate Republicans joined the Democrats in rebuking Trump’s import tax
What happened
The Senate voted 52-48 Tuesday to quash President Donald Trump’s punitive 50% tariff on Brazilian imports, terminating the national emergency he declared to trigger the import tax. Five Republicans joined every Democrat in supporting the measure.
Who said what
Trump slapped the steep tax on Brazilian coffee, orange juice and other imports because the country’s high court chose to “prosecute Donald Trump’s friend,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), the measure’s sponsor, told reporters. “How is that an emergency?” Emergencies “are like war, famine, tornadoes,” said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.). The Brazil tariff is ”an abuse of the emergency power and it’s Congress abdicating their traditional role in taxes.”
The rare bipartisan rebuke of Trump’s signature trade tool came as “the president is in Asia touting tariffs and notching progress on trade agreements,” Politico said. But the vote “remains largely symbolic: Republican leaders in the House have blocked the chamber from voting to overrule the tariffs until March,” and there were not enough Senate votes to overturn a likely Trump veto. Paul told reporters that many of his GOP colleagues privately opposed the tariffs but wouldn’t publicly cross Trump due to “fear.”
What next?
Kaine plans to force two more votes this week: one to end Trump’s Canada import taxes and another to block his widespread global tariffs. The Supreme Court is set to weigh the legality of those broader tariffs next week, and “free-trading Republicans hope the Supreme Court will bail them out,” quashing the tariffs and “defusing what could soon become a brutal internecine fight for Republicans,” Semafor said.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Political cartoons for January 20Cartoons Tuesday's political cartoons include authoritarian cosplay, puffins on parade, and melting public support for ICE
-
Cows can use tools, scientists reportSpeed Read The discovery builds on Jane Goodall’s research from the 1960s
-
Indiana beats Miami for college football titleSpeed Read The victory completed Indiana’s unbeaten season
-
Can Starmer continue to walk the Trump tightrope?Today's Big Question PM condemns US tariff threat but is less confrontational than some European allies
-
Trump, Senate GOP block Venezuela war powers voteSpeed Read Two Republicans senators flipped their vote back amid GOP pressure
-
A running list of US interventions in Latin America and the Caribbean after World War IIin depth Nicolás Maduro isn’t the first regional leader to be toppled directly or indirectly by the US
-
Hegseth moves to demote Sen. Kelly over videospeed read Retired Navy fighter pilot Mark Kelly appeared in a video reminding military service members that they can ‘refuse illegal orders’
-
Trump says US ‘in charge’ of Venezuela after Maduro grabSpeed Read The American president claims the US will ‘run’ Venezuela for an unspecified amount of time, contradicting a statement from Secretary of State Marco Rubio
-
CBS pulls ‘60 Minutes’ report on Trump deporteesSpeed Read An investigation into the deportations of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador’s notorious prison was scrapped
-
Trump administration posts sliver of Epstein filesSpeed Read Many of the Justice Department documents were heavily redacted, though new photos of both Donald Trump and Bill Clinton emerged
-
Trump HHS moves to end care for trans youthSpeed Read The administration is making sweeping proposals that would eliminate gender-affirming care for Americans under age 18
