Four Senate Republicans joined forces with the chamber’s Democrats to reject President Trump’s emergency justification for implementing tariffs against Canada, dealing the president the first legislative loss of his second term.
But the measure is likely dead on arrival in the House and the president said he would “never sign it.”
The 51-48 vote on Wednesday was more about optics and gauging support among Republicans on whether they would go against the president’s economic plan.
The resolution, led by Sen. Tim Kaine, Virginia Democrat, would nullify the emergency declaration the president made earlier this year to justify legally his 25% tariffs against Canada.
The Senate’s rejection of Mr. Trump’s tariffs on Canadian goods came after he announced an executive order that would institute a 10% minimum reciprocal tariff on countries across the globe.
Mr. Trump originally issued his tariffs against Canada, Mexico and China in February through a declaration of the International Economic Emergency Powers Act, citing the countries’ roles in the flow of illegal migrants and illicit drugs, particularly fentanyl.
Mr. Kaine’s measure would narrowly apply only to the emergency order against Canada, leaving the tariffs against Mexico and China untouched.
“Let’s start with Canada,” he told The Washington Times. “I think it’s the most straightforward case, and it’s the one that I would expect to have most Republican sympathy for like, ‘yeah, maybe we shouldn’t be treating Canada this way.’”
Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul of Kentucky agreed, supporting the resolution to reject Mr. Trump’s tariffs against America’s biggest trading partner.
Mr. Trump had called out those four by name in a social media post ahead of the vote urging them to “get on the Republican bandwagon, for a change.”
He said the resolution was merely a ploy from Democrats “to show and expose the weakness of certain Republicans” since it wasn’t going anywhere.
“Why are they allowing Fentanyl to pour into our Country unchecked, and without penalty?” Mr. Trump said, accusing the four Republicans of “suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
Mr. Kaine commended the four Republicans for having a “strong backbone.”
He and Mr. Paul, the lone Republican co-sponsor of the resolution, disputed Mr. Trump’s emergency justification and argued Canada wasn’t a major source of fentanyl compared to Mexico and China.
U.S. border patrol seized enough fentanyl crossing from Canada in 2024 to kill 9.5 million Americans, according to a Department of Homeland Security memo, obtained by The Times, that urged Republicans to vote against the resolution.
Mr. Paul still contended “the problem isn’t in Canada.”
“Even if the problem is valid, even if that’s something that we all agree on, you can’t have a country ruled by emergency,” he said.
Mr. Paul argued that Mr. Trump’s tariffs were effectively a tax against the American people, and leaned into the guardrails in the Constitution that forbid “any one man or woman to raise taxes.”
Still, a majority of Senate Republicans supported the duty on Canada.
Sen. John Hoeven, North Dakota Republican, said ultimately Mr. Trump was after fair trade.
He believed the end game for the president would be to renegotiate his prior trade agreement, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
He said that if Canada were to come to the negotiating table with Mr. Trump, “I think you’ll see that resolve.”
