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After raging against a key tool in President Donald Trump’s economic arsenal, Senate Democrats quietly green-lit the authority before they left Washington, D.C.
Democrats have bashed Trump’s use of tariffs since they were first floated during his campaign in 2024, and have taken every chance to challenge and push back against duties imposed on other countries throughout his second term.
But nearly the entire Senate Democratic caucus voted in favor of giving Trump limited tariff authority in exchange for bone-crushing sanctions against Russia. Only nine Democrats, and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., ultimately voted against the package.
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Now, Trump has ignited a trade war with Canada, introducing 50% tariffs against the country on roughly $20 billion worth of goods, which has reignited the debate on the campaign trail and as Democrats seek to flip the Senate and corral his authority.
Some warned that giving congressional approval would allow the administration to abuse the power.
“It gives Donald Trump massive new tariff authority that he can use to threaten our trading partners and raise prices on the American people,” Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said on the Senate floor. “I believe senators will come to deeply regret voting to give Donald Trump this tariff authority.”
Though not directly connected to the authority granted in the sanctions package, which directly deals with countries buying oil from Russia, Trump’s move to enter into a fight with one of America’s top trade partners is what he warned of: giving the White House congressional leeway.
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The tariff authority baked into the sanctions package would allow Trump to issue levies of up to 500% on Russian imports and tariffs of up to 100% on the top five countries buying Russian energy, like China and India.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who, alongside the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, pushed the package for nearly two years, told Fox News Digital that if Trump strays outside the legal confines built into the package, the courts will block him as they did with his sweeping tariffs unveiled on “Liberation Day” last year.
“If Donald Trump wants to break this law, he will be restrained by the courts, just as when he broke the law on tariffs previously,” Blumenthal said. “We can’t do any more than be explicit in limiting his authority to the top five purchasers, and only those countries, by the terms, specific in the legislation.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who went on to vote against the package, told reporters last month that Trump “has shown what he will do with broad tariff authority.”
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“Heck, he’s shown what he’ll do even if he doesn’t have authority,” she said.
And Paul, who has been one of the lone Republicans to consistently oppose Trump’s use of tariffs, introduced an amendment alongside Wyden to strip them from the broader package, warning that the duties were nothing more than an additional tax on the American people.
“Do not let sympathy for Ukraine blind you to the reality of tariffs,” Paul said.
One Senate Democrat, Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., received guarantees from U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer that the tariffs baked into the sanctions package would just be limited to the top five energy trading partners with the Kremlin.
He told Fox News Digital that the concern was that Trump could broadly bend the rules in the package and impose duties as he pleased, which is why he sought guardrails and commitments from the administration.
“It was important to hold [Vladimir] Putin accountable. He is a war criminal,” Warnock said. “His aggression towards Ukraine has national security implications for us. But at the same time, it was important to put some guardrails on this president. And I think I made considerable progress in making sure that that happens.”
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