Opponents of President Trump’s tariffs on Capitol Hill scored a significant victory and opened the door to what are expected to be multiple votes targeting the president’s signature economic policy.
First on Tuesday came a 217-214 vote to defeat a maneuver that would have kept tariff-related resolutions on hold until August.
Then on Wednesday, Canada was up first in a follow vote that saw an even wider margin of 219-211.
Six Republicans joined with nearly every Democrat to pass Joint Resolution 72, which seeks to terminate a national emergency that Trump declared last February imposing tariffs on Canada over the issue of illegal drugs.
That move came even as Trump openly threatened lawmakers who crossed him in a Truth Social post, writing that Republicans who oppose tariffs “will seriously suffer the consequences come Election time.”
Yet in the end, six Republicans did exactly that. Republican Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Don Bacon of Nebraska, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Jeff Hurd of Colorado, Kevin Kiley of California, and Dan Newhouse of Washington state all voted yes.
The vote in the end is expected to be a largely symbolic one — Trump is able to veto any resolution if it ever reaches his desk — but it’s the first in many national emergency declarations Trump has issued in the last 13 months that are now expected to be under renewed scrutiny.
Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney and US President Donald Trump are seen last December during a drawing for the 2026 FIFA Football World Cup taking place in the US, Canada and Mexico. (Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP via Getty Images) · BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI via Getty Images
The Canada-specific move targets one of Trump’s most controversial orders, as there is thin evidence of a “public health crisis in the United States” as a result of drugs coming in from Canada.
Fact checkers have been noting for over a year that the amount of fentanyl seized at the US/Canada border is minuscule compared to the southern border.
A recent Congressional Research Service report offered a similar conclusion that “at present, most U.S.-destined illicit fentanyl appears to be produced clandestinely in Mexico, using chemical precursors from China.”
Trump has also imposed fentanyl-specific tariffs on Mexico and China, but the president has steadfastly maintained that Canadian ones are needed as well.
Trump has also lobbed plenty of threats at America’s northern neighbor, from suggesting Canada should be annexed by the United States to, just this week, threatening to shut down a bridge between the two nations.
The back-and-forth around tariffs on Capitol Hill also comes as Washington is closely watching for a Supreme Court ruling on the president’s legal authority to unilaterally set tariffs after declaring an emergency.
That ruling surrounds a law called the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) of 1977, with a decision there expected in the coming months.
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