Two Democratic senators introduced a bill that would require President Trump to get congressional approval for proposed tariffs on trading partners before imposing them, a push coming just days before the president is set to impose new ones on Mexico and Canada.
Sens. Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Tim Kaine (D-Va.) brought forward the “Stopping Tariffs on Allies and Bolstering Legislative Exercise of (STABLE) Trade Policy Act” on Thursday, which would also require the president to elaborate on their decision to impose tariffs on U.S. allies and trading partners and how the tariffs would impact the U.S. economy and foreign policy priorities.
“Congress gave the president the authority to impose tariffs so that he could combat our enemies in the event of a national security crisis, not so that he could pursue grudges against our allies and neighbors,” Coons said in a Friday release.
On Thursday, Trump warned that he plans to carry out his threat to slap 25 percent tariffs on goods coming from both Canada and Mexico.
“I’ll be putting the tariff of 25 percent on Canada and Mexico, and we will really have to do that because we have very big deficits with those countries. Those tariffs may or may not rise with time,” Trump said from the Oval Office, citing the influx of fentanyl into the country and the flow of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Coons called the tariff threat an abuse of power.
“If the president is going abuse this power to bully and coerce our allies, Congress should take this authority back,” Coons said in a statement. “If this weekend’s tariffs go into effect, they’ll do catastrophic damage to our relationships with our allies and raise costs for working families by hundreds of dollars a year. Congress needs to stop this from happening again.”
In late November last year, Trump warned that he would institute tariffs on both Canada and Mexico through an executive order once he was sworn into office.
Both Mexico and Canada are the U.S. top trading partners and experts have cautioned that Trump’s tariffs could end up increasing prices of some goods for American consumers. They have also said the economies of Canada and Mexico could have a harder time long-term if the trade war begins.
“Virginians want costs to go down, not up. But President Trump’s plans to impose broad-based tariffs would raise the price of everyday goods and hurt our economy,” Kaine said.
“It’s time for Congress to make it clear that no president should abuse existing tariff authorities designed to protect America’s national security from threats posed by our adversaries to slap tariffs on our allies and closest trading partners,” he added.
