Lawmakers sound off on Trump tariffs as trade war begins

WASHINGTON (CN) — Members of Congress weighed in Tuesday on the Donald Trump administration’s move to slap import tariffs on goods from three of the country’s closest trading partners, the first volley in what is set to become a trade war.

The White House, following through on months of threats, announced 25% tariffs on most goods imported from Mexico and Canada, as well as a 10% tariff on imports of Canadian energy. The administration also hiked levies against Chinese goods to 20% — twice the level it rolled out in February.

The move sent shockwaves through financial markets Tuesday morning and sparked fears of rising inflation and potential retaliation from countries targeted by the new import taxes.

Sure enough, China has announced its own tariffs on imports of U.S. agricultural products, coming in at around 15%. And both Canada and Mexico have said they will also roll out retaliatory levies on American exports.

Trump, for his part, has framed tariffs as a “powerful weapon,” one that he threatened on the campaign trail to bring to bear on U.S. allies and adversaries alike.

On Capitol Hill, some Republican leaders framed the import taxes as a “common sense” trade policy.

House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters during a news conference Tuesday that the tariffs were “not an adversarial thing” but in fact were designed to repair trade relations with countries he said had taken advantage of the U.S.

Johnson said he hoped that implementing tariffs would force Mexico, Canada and China to bring their own import rates down — even as the opposite is happening.

“I don’t think anybody envisions a trade war or looks forward to that,” said the House speaker. “The America First agenda is to reset those relationships. We support it, and we’ll see what happens.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune similarly defended the president’s policy, framing it as specifically an effort to stem fentanyl trafficking from both Mexico and Canada.

“I think these tariffs are oriented around a specific objective — in this case, to reduce the amount of fentanyl coming into this country from across our northern and southern borders,” said the South Dakota Republican.

And the import taxes, Thune added, were “hopefully temporary.”

“This is clearly something where the president, who has used this tool in the past to try to get a specific outcome, is trying to achieve that again,” he said.

Democrats, meanwhile, were apoplectic with the White House.

“I have never seen such an important policy that affects so many people come into effect with so little thought, so little analysis,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said during a news conference. “Huge industries in every state are going to be hurt.”

Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar argued that tariffs and the price increases they are likely to beget were “not what people signed up for” when they elected Trump for a second time.

“I get that people wanted change,” she said. “I get that they wanted someone to shake things up, to work on bringing health care costs down and to do something about housing — but they didn’t want this.”

Meanwhile, Mexican and Canadian leaders on Tuesday decried Trump’s new tariffs. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said she would announce retaliatory measures over the weekend, giving Washington time to de-escalate.

Deteriorating trade relations with Mexico come just weeks after Trump agreed to hold off on implementing tariffs following Sheinbaum’s commitment to send Mexican National Guard troops to the U.S. border to aid immigration enforcement.

In return, Washington agreed to help prevent weapons trafficking to Mexican cartels from U.S. sources — an issue that forms the backbone of Mexico’s lawsuit against American weapons manufacturers, which the Supreme Court heard Tuesday.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, rolling out retaliatory tariffs of his own on Tuesday, wrote on social media that the U.S. had launched a trade war against its “closest friend.”

“Canadians are reasonable, but we will not back down from a fight,” Trudeau said in a post on X. “Not when our country is at stake.”

Trump, for his part, responded to the Canadian leader by threatening to hike tariffs even higher if Ottawa followed through with its own retaliatory tax on American goods. In a Tuesday post on his social media platform Truth Social, the president referred to Trudeau as “governor” — an apparent reference to Trump’s stated desire to make Canada the 51st U.S. state.

“Please explain to Governor Trudeau, of Canada, that when he puts a Retaliatory Tariff on the U.S., our Reciprocal Tariff will immediately increase by a like amount!” the president wrote.

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