WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans are facing pressure Wednesday from President Donald Trump to oppose a Democratic resolution that would nullify the presidential emergency on fentanyl he is using to implement tariffs on Canada.
Just hours after Trump is set to announce his plan for “reciprocal tariffs” on China, Mexico and Canada — his so-called “Liberation Day” — the Senate was expected to vote on a resolution that offers Republicans an off-ramp to the import taxes on Canada. It is a significant test for Republican loyalty to Trump’s vision of remaking the U.S. economy by clamping down on free trade. Many economists are warning that the plan could cause an economic contraction, and GOP senators are already watching with unease as Trump upends U.S. standing with the rest of the world.
The votes of at least four Republicans — U.S. Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Rand Paul of Kentucky — were thought to be lining up in favor of the resolution. If all Democrats plus the four Republicans vote in favor, it would boost it to the simple majority needed to pass the Senate. The legislation would still need to be brought up and passed in the Republican-controlled House.
In a social media post just before 1 a.m. Wednesday, Trump singled out the four senators, saying they “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, Trump has argued that Canada is not doing enough to stop illegal drugs from entering the northern border. Customs and Border Protection seized 43 pounds of fentanyl in its northern border sector during the 2024 fiscal year, and since January, authorities have seized less than 1.5 pounds, according to federal data. Meanwhile, at the southern border, authorities seized over 21,000 pounds last year.
“This is not about fentanyl. It’s about tariffs. It’s about a national sales tax on American families,” Sen. Tim Kaine, the Virginia Democrat who initiated the resolution, said at at news conference Wednesday.
Democrats are arguing that Trump is using the tariffs to pay for tax cuts that would benefit the wealthy, but will make it more expensive to build homes, disrupt industries and raise prices on imported grocery products. Kaine pointed to aluminum imported from Canada that would hurt businesses ranging from pie makers to shipbuilders.
“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.
He added, “The Senate has a chance to slow this trade war down today if Republicans join us.”
On the heels of election results in Wisconsin and Florida that delivered early warning signs to Republicans about the popularity of Trump’s agenda, Schumer said that Trump 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.”
For their part, Republican leaders were trying to hold their members in line against the tariff resolution by emphasizing that Trump was acting to address fentanyl trafficking and border security.
Majority Whip Sen. 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.”
Republicans lined up on the Senate floor Wednesday afternoon to underscore the need to act to halt fentanyl trafficking, including at the northern border. However, a key group of Senate Republicans were also indicating their opposition to tariffs on Canada.
In a floor speech Wednesday, Collins said she would support the resolution and noted, “The fact is the vast majority of fentanyl in America comes from the southern border.”
Collins noted that Canada is already beefing up border security to address drug trafficking and said she was concerned what tariffs would do to businesses and households in Maine. She pointed to a paper mill in her home state that pumps paper pulp from Canada.
“A tariff placed on this pulp would jeopardize the financial wellbeing of this vital paper mill, which employs more than 500 people in rural, northern Maine. There is not another big employer in that area that can possibly compensate for the loss of those 510 direct jobs,” Collins said.
While a younger group of Republicans closely aligned with Trump have spoken out in favor of the president’s plans to aggressively reshape the economy, a sizeable portion of the Republican Conference noted concerns about the tariff impacts on farmers and other industries. Still, most wanted to give Trump room to negotiate better trade deals.
North Dakota Sen. Kevin Cramer said that he has been in constant talks with both Canadian officials and businesses in his state like Bobcat, which does a significant amount of its sales in Canada. But he didn’t plan on supporting the resolution. Instead, he hoped that Trump’s Wednesday announcement would just be a starting point for negotiations for the reciprocal dropping of tariffs.
The Republican added: “I’m not overly concerned about it, but obviously it occupies a lot of attention and time and a lot of political anxiety.”
But Democrats had found a way to press into that anxiety and test their GOP colleagues’ support for Trump’s vision for vast changes in how the U.S. interacts with longtime allies.
“Like President Trump, I think it’s right to say, ‘America first.’ But I don’t want America alone,” said Kaine. “I don’t want an America pushing aside its long standing allies who have stood with us.”
