US-Canada trade ties: Senate votes to revoke Trump’s 10% additional tariffs on Canada; cites harm to ‘maine economy’
The US Senate has given a major blow to US President Donald Trump’s order to impose additional 10% tariffs on Canada, revoking his authority to impose steep duties on the country. The resolution was passed late Wednesday (local time) with a 50–46 vote, as reported by The Hill. Four Republicans, Susan Collins and Rand Paul of Kentucky, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, voted with Democrats to support the measure.
The push to restrict Trump’s tariff powers originally cleared the Senate on April 2 but was blocked when the Republican-led House declined to act on it. Senator Tim Kaine, a Democrat from Virginia, revived the proposal this week, insisting that Trump’s justification for hitting Canada with tariffs does not fall under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.“I primarily object to the Canada tariffs because I don’t think there’s an emergency that should trigger the use of this statute,” Kaine said during floor debate. “The fracturing of this long-standing, powerful relationship [with Canada] is one of the many reasons I oppose them.”Senator Susan Collins has consistently argued that Maine, a state whose economy is tightly linked with Canada, would bear the brunt of the trade measures. “The Maine economy is integrated with Canada, our most important trading partner,” she said previously, adding that tariffs on petroleum products, paper mills, forest industries and fisheries would harm many families and local economies.Tensions escalated after an advert broadcast during the World Series in Ontario used a clip of former US President Ronald Reagan criticising tariffs. Trump denounced the advert as a “serious misrepresentation of the facts” and called it a “hostile act”, before announcing the additional 10% duties.Wednesday’s voting came immediately after another move by lawmakers to curb Trump’s trade authority, only a day earlier, five Republican senators sided with Democrats on a similar resolution aimed at ending his emergency tariff powers against Brazil.
