GOP breathes secret sigh of relief as courts put brakes on Trump tariffs

The Hill

5 days ago

Republican lawmakers are breathing a sigh of relief that the courts are putting the brakes on President Trump's trade war, which has pummeled markets, created economic uncertainty and taken a bite out of Trump's own approval ratings.
It's unclear who will win the final legal battle, which could end up in the Supreme Court.
But Republicans for now are mostly hoping Trump takes a political win in the form of judicial decisions that could hold back his trade war or even put the tariffs on ice.
'I'm sure that Republican senators are secretly rooting for the Supreme Court to uphold the lower-court decision,' said Brian Darling, a GOP strategist and former Senate aide.
He said GOP lawmakers are 'quietly applauding the decision' by two courts Wednesday and Thursday to halt Trump's tariffs 'because it saves them from having to deal with the tariff issue, which has proven to be unpopular.'
'They're very happy about the decision as long it takes it off the table for a long period of time and doesn't commence another round of tariffs by different means,' he said.
In a way, these courts were taking actions that most Republicans couldn't, given the potential political costs of GOP senators taking Trump head-on over trade.
'Clearly, tariffs is an important issue for President Trump personally. It's something he's talked about and he's been pushing for a long, long time,' Darling said. 'Most Republican senators have no reason to go and talk about a tariff decision that blocks tariffs because they know it's not going to go over well on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.'
One Republican who has been vocal in his criticism of the Trump tariffs is Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.).
He applauded the court's ruling, arguing that the Constitution gives Congress, not the president, exclusive authority to tax imports.
'I have said time and time again that the Founders wanted to prevent one person from having unilateral control and decision-making powers. That's why the power of the purse and the ability to tax lie with Congress, not the president,' Paul posted on social platform X.
The two decisions that went against Trump took place Wednesday night, when the U.S. Court of International Trade ruled the president had exceeded his authority to impose tariffs, and on Thursday, when a second federal court issued a separate ruling on similar grounds. Both decisions said he could not cite emergency economic powers to impose his tariffs.
However, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit later Thursday lifted the first ruling blocking Trump's tariffs.
The Trump administration is expected to appeal the decisions to the Supreme Court, which could weigh in as soon as Friday.
GOP lawmakers have said for months they want to give Trump room to strike deals with foreign trading partners but with June only a few days away, the president has yet to show significant progress in his trade talks, other than a deal with the United Kingdom that did little to calm the financial markets.
The three judges on the trade court who issued the summary judgment found that Trump exceeded his authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) of 1977 to impose tariffs, blocking the reciprocal tariffs he imposed on almost every country in the world before later lowering them to 10 percent for a period of 90 days.
The trade court also blocked the tariffs that Trump levied separately against Canada, Mexico and China in response to what the president identified as threats posed by drug-trafficking and illegal immigration.
Senate Republicans who had criticized or expressed skepticism about Trump's tariff policies stayed mostly quiet Thursday in response to the court ruling, but GOP strategists say they are breathing a sigh of relief.
A senior Senate Republican aide warned that Trump was risking his reputation on the economy by wielding tariffs as a weapon against trading partners, a tactic that has started to depress corporate earnings projections for the rest of 2025.
Target, one of the nation's biggest retailers, last week cut its sales outlook for the rest of the year, citing weaker discretionary spending and consumer uncertainty because of tariffs.
HP, the information technology company, cut its annual profit forecast Wednesday because of 'tariff-related costs.' Its shares plunged 14 percent before gaining back some ground later in the day.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) has long expressed skepticism of using tariffs to build up the domestic economy.
But he has muted his personal views on tariffs since becoming Senate GOP leader in January, telling reporters since then: 'I think everybody knows my views on tariffs.'
At the same time, he noted that Trump won a decisive victory in the 2024 presidential campaign after running on a promise to use tariffs to negotiate better deals for the United States.
Thune asked constituents at a public meeting last month to give Trump time to strike trade deals, urging patience 'to see what kind of deals he can strike.'
Thune's home-state colleague, Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), has warned that tariffs are pinching farmers in South Dakota.
Rounds told The Hill in March that while many farmers in South Dakota are 'really strong Trump supporters,' they wanted him to communicate to the president 'what tariffs are going to do' to their businesses.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) last month called tariffs a 'tax on American consumers.'
'I think it is a mistake to assume that we will have high tariffs in perpetuity. I don't think that would be good economic policy. I am not a fan of tariffs,' he told Fox Business host Larry Kudlow.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who faces a tough reelection race next year, said Trump and his top advisers need to show progress on trade deals before the end of June to create more certainty for businesses, warning that otherwise Republicans could face political headwinds in the election year.
'At the end of the day, the voters are largely driven by the question, 'Are you better off than you were fill-in-the-blank years ago?' And clearly if we have this kind of froth next year than it's a real challenge for Republicans,' Tillis said last month.
The North Carolina senator, however, has to tread carefully on the issue as he faces a potential primary challenge next year.
Tillis on Thursday pushed back against media reports about the TACO trade on Wall Street, in which speculators buy the dip in prices after Trump announces a new round of tariffs on the premise that 'Trump always chickens out' and then eases them.
'The media is citing 'unnamed' Wall Street hacks to attack President Trump,' he posted on social media. 'They've clearly never run a business or learned why adaptability is the key to success. Complex negotiations are not a straight line.'
Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, on Wednesday was a rare GOP lawmaker who defended Trump's authority to levy tariffs in the wake of the trade court's ruling.
'I think it's pretty clear that the president has tariff authority. Congress gave it to him. You can debate whether that was a prudent move or not, but I think it's pretty clear that he has tariff authority,' he told Fox News host Laura Ingraham.