U.S. Sen. Susan Collins will have her latest chance this week to vote against President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff policies.
But the attempts by the Maine Republican, a small group of her party colleagues and Senate Democrats to overturn Trump’s emergency declarations that authorized aggressive tariffs on goods from Canada and Brazil along with new global baseline tariffs may serve as more of a symbolic gesture that won’t pick up traction in the GOP-controlled House.
The votes expected as soon as Wednesday on three resolutions also come after Collins avoided referring to Trump by name while criticizing his Canada tariffs in a Monday radio interview and held off on joining U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and congressional Democrats in signing a letter urging the Supreme Court to strike down the tariffs.
It all ties into the efforts by Collins and other Republican senators to tell farmers and businesses hurt by the tariffs that they are standing up for them while contending with Trump’s continued grip on the party. The Maine senator faces a high-profile reelection battle next year. The Democratic primary field includes Gov. Janet Mills, another tariff critic.
The three resolutions the Senate is taking up this week aim to terminate Trump’s declared national emergencies that imposed 25 percent tariffs on Canadian imports and 10 percent tariffs on Canadian energy products along with 50 percent tariffs on Brazilian goods and 10 to 50 percent tariffs on nearly every country in the world.
The Supreme Court is also expected next week to hear arguments on whether Trump’s emergency tariffs are legal. Murkowski joined more than 200 Democratic lawmakers in signing Friday an amicus brief that urges the justices to agree with a lower court that found Trump does not have the power under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to unilaterally impose tariffs.
Collins spokesperson Blake Kernen said Tuesday the senator has had a policy for years of not signing amicus briefs. U.S. Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, and U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, a 1st District Democrat, signed the brief. U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, a 2nd District Democrat who supports Trump’s trade policies, did not.
Though her office did not share Tuesday how she intends to vote, Collins will likely back the resolutions given they are similar to measures she supported earlier this year, including one from U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, to repeal Trump’s emergency declaration in February to impose the Canadian tariffs. The Senate passed it 51-48 in April before it stalled in the House.
Collins did not mention Trump by name in her WVOM interview Monday but reiterated she feels his tariffs are causing the cost of living to rise in her state with close economic ties to Canada. She also alluded to Ontario Premier Doug Ford running an anti-tariff ad featuring former President Ronald Reagan’s voice that prompted Trump to cancel trade negotiations with Canada. Ford later said he was pulling the ad.
“They should just apologize,” Collins said, apparently referring to Ford. “We should move on, but there should not be Canadian tariffs.”
Ford quipped “mission accomplished” Monday regarding the ad that drew more than 1 billion views before it was taken down.
In an April social media post, Trump blasted Collins and the three other GOP senators who backed Kaine’s tariff resolution — Murkowski and Kentucky Sens. Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul — and wished they would “hopefully get on the Republican bandwagon, for a change.”
Senate Republicans reportedly challenged Trump’s trade representative to find more export markets during a private lunch earlier this month amid China halting purchases of several American crops. Vice President JD Vance met Tuesday with Senate Republicans ahead of the tariff votes.
