{"id":30531,"date":"2024-08-05T11:41:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-05T16:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=30531"},"modified":"2024-08-05T21:47:00","modified_gmt":"2024-08-06T02:47:00","slug":"gop-senators-break-with-trump-on-trade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=30531","title":{"rendered":"GOP senators break with Trump on trade"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Top Senate Republicans are breaking with&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/politics-policy\/donald-trump\"><u>former President Trump<\/u><\/a>&nbsp;over his plan to impose across-the-board tariffs on goods coming into the U.S.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>Why it matters:&nbsp;<\/strong>The comments from senators, including two vying to replace Mitch McConnell as GOP leader, signal the potential for a fresh round of Republican infighting over trade and the economy if Trump wins on Nov. 5.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>The big picture<\/strong>: When asked if they supported the blanket 10% tariff on imports that&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/features\/2024-trump-interview\/\"><u>Trump has floated<\/u><\/a>, Sens. John Thune (R-S.D.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) both showed significant daylight with their party&#8217;s standard-bearer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">&#8220;There are ways that you can selectively use [tariffs] as a tool to achieve economic policy outcomes, but just uniform, across-the-board tariffs is not something I have been for in the past,&#8221; said Thune, who is considered the frontrunner to replace McConnell.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Cornyn, who is also running for GOP leader, described across-the-board tariffs as potentially &#8220;problematic.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>Between the lines<\/strong>: Some senators suggested the former president ultimately could be convinced to soften his actual plan, with many expressing concerns about the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2024\/05\/08\/trump-biden-2024-economy-inflation\"><u>inflationary effects<\/u><\/a>&nbsp;of universal 10% tariffs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Cornyn said he thinks Trump is &#8220;demonstrating he believes that tariffs should be used to rebalance unfair trading relationships&#8221; for countries like China, an approach he generally supports.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Trump, who imposed sweeping tariffs on China, the European Union and other countries during his first term, is eyeing a new global trade war with proposed levies of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=WAg99owBB6w\"><u>60% or more<\/u><\/a>\u00a0on Chinese goods.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Senators&#8217; answers at times were reminiscent of conversations during Trump&#8217;s first run for president \u2014 that he should be taken\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/politics\/archive\/2016\/09\/trump-makes-his-case-in-pittsburgh\/501335\/\"><u>seriously, not literally<\/u><\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>Zoom in<\/strong>: &#8220;I don&#8217;t know if across-the-board, truly means across-the-board,&#8221; Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) told Axios, saying she needs to explore the idea more and talk with Trump&#8217;s advisers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">&#8220;I know what he&#8217;s stumping on, but I don&#8217;t believe as a matter of policy that&#8217;s exactly how we&#8217;d implement it,&#8221; Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), a former Senate Commerce committee chair, told Axios he&#8217;s listening, but &#8220;not convinced that&#8217;s the best approach.&#8221;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Wicker added the former president is &#8220;gonna listen to people within his circle of advisers, and that includes people on both sides of that issue,&#8221; noting Larry Kudlow, in particular, who has warned about inflationary impacts of Trump policies in the past.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>Zoom out:&nbsp;<\/strong>Republicans have made it a cornerstone of their campaigns this year to slam President Biden for policies they argue&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2024\/06\/26\/us-inflation-democrats-republicans-blame-axios-vibes\"><u>spurred red-hot inflation.<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Now, Republican lawmakers are in the tricky position of heading home to meet constituents over the August recess with a candidate at the top of the ticket eyeing trade policies\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/trump-tariffs-proposal-10-percent-1700-cost-per-us-household\/\"><u>economists believe<\/u><\/a>\u00a0could trigger a new rise in consumer prices.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">&#8220;I think ultimately tariffs result in higher prices for consumers,&#8221; Cornyn said.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>The other side<\/strong>: &#8220;By cutting regulations and taxes and using the leverage of the United States to negotiate better trade deals around the world, President Trump built the strongest economy in American history,&#8221; Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Axios in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Leavitt went on to criticize Vice President Harris&#8217; &#8220;out of control spending&#8221; as part of the Biden administration, which she said &#8220;created the worst inflation crisis in generations.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>What they&#8217;re saying:&nbsp;<\/strong>NRSC Chair Steve Daines (R-Mont.) told Axios&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2024\/07\/15\/steve-daines-trump-tariffs-rnc-2024\"><u>during an event<\/u><\/a><strong>&nbsp;<\/strong>at the Republican National Convention that he&#8217;d be &#8220;more inclined to do targeted type tariffs &#8230; versus something that&#8217;s just universal.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Tillis also warned that &#8220;if all we did was across-the-board tariffs, it would have an inflationary impact&#8221; \u2014 though he said it was fine for Trump to send the message that tariffs can be used as a weapon, including against U.S. adversaries.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>What to watch:&nbsp;<\/strong>Trump&#8217;s choice of Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) as his running mate is another signal that he intends to move the Republican Party further away from its traditional free trade policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Vance told\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/jd-vance-ohio-senator-face-the-nation-transcript-05-19-2024\/\"><u>CBS&#8217;s Face the Nation<\/u><\/a>\u00a0in May that he supports &#8220;broad-based tariffs, especially on goods coming in from China,&#8221; adding the U.S. needs &#8220;to protect American industries from all of the competition.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2024\/08\/04\/gop-senators-donald-trump-tariff-trade-inflation\">axios<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Top Senate Republicans are breaking with&nbsp;former President Trump&nbsp;over his plan to impose across-the-board tariffs on goods coming into the U.S. Why it matters:&nbsp;The comments from senators, including two vying to replace Mitch McConnell as GOP leader, signal the potential for a fresh round of Republican infighting over trade and the economy if Trump wins on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":30532,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1155],"tags":[1580,1541,29934,3617,1230],"class_list":["post-30531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-republicans","tag-senators","tag-the-break","tag-trade","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30531"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30533,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30531\/revisions\/30533"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}