Congress has the power to stop Trump’s prices. But the Republicans are not ready to use it

By Stephen Groves

Washington (AP) – While the stock markets plummeted following the radical rates of President Donald Trump, the Republicans in the Congress looked with discomfort and spoke of recovering their power to take prices – but almost none seemed ready to transform their words into action.

The Republican President upsets the principles of long-standing GOP such as the support of free trade, but despite clear reluctance and a constitutional mandate to decide on prices, most of the legislators were not ready to cross the entrust. Instead, they concentrated all their attention on the advancement of the president of the president of tax reductions and expense reductions, even if prices – in substance, import taxes – have threatened to increase consumer prices at all levels and to push the global economy into a recession.

While Trump’s announcements have repercussions in the world markets, the majority leader of the Senate, John Thune, who clearly said that he was not a fan of the prices, told Trump “the benefit of the doubt” in the hope that the announcement was only a frightening tactic to encourage foreign leaders to delicate better trade agreements with the United States.

“The president is a negotiation mechanism if nothing else, and he will continue to treat the country by country with each of them,” said senator John Barrasso, a Wyoming republican who is not. 2 In the direction of the GOP Senate. He added that the secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent, told the Senate Republicans this week that the prices announced by Trump would be a “high -level brand in order to reduce them” unless other countries are retaluating.

But countries like China already retaliate with their own prices, and although the president reported that he was open to negotiations, he seemed above all a provocative tone on Friday, saying on social networks that “my policies will never change” while affirming that foreign investors were lining up to invest in the American industries. He was on the golf course on Friday near his private club Mar-A-Lago in Florida.

Congress, however, was nervous.

A handful of Republicans have reprimanded Trump’s strategy as a reckless path that will take care of American households. Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, the longtime head of the Senate who was the standard bearer of the past generations of Republicans, published a long declaration saying: “As I have always warned, prices are bad policy and trade wars with our partners mostly harm workers.”

McConnell and three other Republicans joined the Democrats this week to help adopt a resolution that would cancel Trump’s prices on Canada, sending a reprimand to the president only a few hours after his “Liberation Day”. But the president of the room, Mike Johnson, quickly said that he had no interest in giving a vote to the resolution.

The legislator’s struggle to act showed the fracture between the Republicans on commercial policy, with a group of Republicans, most of which is younger, fiercely supporting Trump’s strategy. Rather than taking into account the traditional doctrine of free trade, they plead for “America First” protectionism and hope that this will revive American manufacturing.

Republican senator Josh Hawley said that workers from his original Missouri state were “absolutely delighted”. “We have lost jobs on the left and right. Farmers want to see a good deal for our products, in Canada and Mexico and (the European Union), “he added.

For their part, the Democrats have criticized Trump’s prices as an imprudent maneuver intended to do nothing more than collect funds for tax reductions that Trump and the Republicans try to pass.

“Why would it increase the costs of American families by $ 5,000, as it is estimated? Simply because its very rich billionaire friends want a greater tax relief,” Chuck Schumer, a democratic leader of the Senate, said in a floor speech on Friday.

Other Democrats have challenged more Republicans to resist Trump. “If they really believe in capitalism, they have to make their voices where capitalism is and it is that competition works, our global relations work,” said senator Amy Klobuchar, D-minn., At a press conference.

“Donald Trump brings us back to the great depression,” she added.

Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky republican who has libertarian economic opinions, was very critical of the prices, warning that they create the same economic problems that exacerbated great depression. He asked the Congress to reject Trump’s plans with legislation that would require the approval of the congress for import taxes.

Other Republicans were looking for roundabouts to verify the President’s power on commercial policy. Senator Chuck Grassley, a senior republican of Iowa, presented a bipartite bill on Thursday which would force the presidents to justify new prices in the congress. The legislators should then approve the prices within 60 days, or they would expire.

Although Grassley stressed that he has been working on the idea for a long time, the time of the bill was notable. He gave the Republicans a chance to talk about their disgust for import taxes and raised the perspective that Congress recovered part of its power on the prices. The Constitution gives the congress responsibility to set taxes and prices, but during the last century, the legislators sold a large part of their power over import taxes from the president.

A handful of Republicans said they were in favor of Grassley’s proposal, although the idea of ​​directly challenging Trump seemed to stifle the potential for rapid action.

“I don’t want to do it in a politically busy environment,” said Senator Mike Rounds, a Southern Dakota Republican. “But I absolutely agree. It was put in place by the founding fathers to be the role of the congress. And, I think that we have exceeded what the founding fathers have always wanted to have happened.”

The Democratic senator Brian Shatz seized the hesitation of the Republicans, affirming on Friday on the social networks that the Senate was repealing or massively limited the tariff authority “if each senator voted his conscience and the interest of their state”.

“Most of the time, everyone hates that, they are just too afraid of the crazy king right now,” added Schatz.

Senator John Kennedy, a republican of Louisiana, also predicted that the bill would never pass “because of the voting requirements in the Senate”.

But he went to social networks to offer a little folk advice: “The prices are like whiskey: a little whiskey, in the right circumstances, can be refreshing – but too much whiskey, in bad circumstances, can make you drunk like a goat.”

The author of the associated press Kevin Freking contributed

Originally published: April 4, 2025 at 1:10 p.m.