Maine U.S. Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King voted Wednesday for a failed effort to block President Donald Trump’s global tariffs announced last month.
The resolution marked the second attempt by Democrats and several Republicans to reassert congressional authority to check Trump’s erratic deployment of import taxes that have worried businesses, rattled financial markets and raised concerns about an economic downturn.
The vote in the Senate came the same day that the Commerce Department announced the first contraction in the U.S. economy in three years.
Collins and King have both been critical of the president’s tariffs and joined a previous resolution that would have stopped his import taxes against Canada.
While the Canada resolution passed the Senate, it and the one that failed Wednesday had no path in the House. That’s because Republicans in the House enacted a rule last month that would delay any votes on tariff resolutions until later this year.
The move effectively blocked their own ability to check the president’s broad use of emergency powers to assess import taxes.
This article appears through a media partnership with Maine Public.
