--- title: Congress Freaks Out Over Trump's Tariffs, But Won't Stop Him description: Republicans control Congress and Congress can stop Trump's tariffs. Instead of exercising their power, Republicans are panicking. canonical: https://time.com/7274601/tariffs-trump-republicans-against/ author: Philip Elliott article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2025-04-03T21:49:07.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-19T07:51:19.894Z article:section: Politics og:title: Congress Freaks Out Over Trump's Tariffs, But Won't Stop Him og:description: Congress is freaking out about Trump's trade war, but not enough to stop him, writes Philip Elliott og:url: https://time.com/7274601/tariffs-trump-republicans-against/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt07ce0fb2dc176385/6998c585e1ba00c93198d6f6/GettyImages-2203339355.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: Donald Trump Delivers Joint Address To Congress og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Congress Freaks Out Over Trump's Tariffs, But Won't Stop Him twitter:description: Congress is freaking out about Trump's trade war, but not enough to stop him, writes Philip Elliott twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt07ce0fb2dc176385/6998c585e1ba00c93198d6f6/GettyImages-2203339355.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Congress Is Freaking Out About Trump's Trade War, But Not Enough to Stop Him > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=e5d7458e-ad23-4065-a3c0-0e97b2e2c15c&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Trump’s Tariffs Draw Strong Reactions in Congress [Watch (HLS stream): Trump’s Tariffs Draw Strong Reactions in Congress](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/Vi4J6xmB.m3u8) (3:07)  _Published 2025-04-03. President Donald Trump’s expansive new tariffs flips on its head a decades-long global trend of lower trade barriers and is likely, economists say, to raise prices for Americans by thousands of dollars each year while sharply slowing the U.S. economy._  by [Philip Elliott](https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/)  ## Philip Elliott Senior Correspondent Apr 3, 2025 9:49 PM UTC President Donald Trump’s expansive new tariffs flips on its head a decades-long global trend of lower trade barriers and is likely, economists say, to raise prices for Americans by thousands of dollars each year while sharply slowing the U.S. economy.  by [Philip Elliott](https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/)  ## Philip Elliott Senior Correspondent Apr 3, 2025 9:49 PM UTC _This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up_ [_here_](https://cloud.newsletters.time.com/signup?nln=dc-brief&source=dc%5Fonsite) _to get stories like this sent to your inbox._ A fast-spreading panic hit Capitol Hill on Thursday, as President Donald Trump’s trade war prompted markets to suffer their worst day since the onset of the pandemic in 2020 and analysts were predicting the worst was yet to come. While most Hill Republicans tried to avoid criticizing their party’s leader, frustrations were being laid bare as their talking points didn’t match those coming out of the White House. Lawmakers were insisting Trump’s new tariffs are a starting point for a negotiation while the White House said they’re actually the end of the discussion. Frantic calls to Cabinet agencies about home-district impacts were yielding platitudes and not promises. Even give-Trump-a-chance Republicans began losing patience as their office phone lines were on fire. Trump’s stated goal is to force businesses to make their wares on U.S. soil, in theory sparking a renaissance in domestic manufacturing. Economists are highly skeptical, but even Trump’s apologists worry that the short-term ramp-up is going to be rough. Midterm elections seldom reward the party holding the White House even in the best of times, and Republicans are quickly realizing that Trump's kitchen-table chaos may end up tanking their hopes for retaining control of Congress next year. “None of this was thought through,” says one Republican lobbyist who is trying to tell her association’s members not to panic. “The math doesn’t work. The end game doesn’t work. The politics doesn’t work. This is just a mess and it is going to cost Republicans seats.” Not too long ago, Congress would have had some say in the tariffs levied on other countries. But Trump is calling the trade imbalance between domestic markets and its international partners as a national emergency to avail himself of powers that allow him, without any real check, to impose these tariffs. The result is set to be a minimum 10% tax on most goods coming into the country and climbing to a net [79%](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/03/business/economy/trump-tariffs-trade.html) charge on some stuff coming in from China. Put plainly: this was not the trade rebalancing Hill Republicans would have drafted had they been consulted. Just don’t expect things to move in any meaningful way against Trump’s orders any time soon, no matter how steamed they are. A handful of Republicans were motioning to curb Trump’s capricious trade war, but not in a way that anyone in Washington expects will go anywhere. As TIME’s Nik Popli [reports](https://time.com/7274573/trump-tariffs-congress/) from the Hill, Sen. Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican whose home-state farmers will pay dearly if the export markets close, is backing a [measure](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/04/03/tariffs-republicans-trade-war-politics/) that requires Congress to approve tariffs within 60 days of a White House announcement. But there is almost zero chance the bill will get sufficient backing—let alone a vote—in the GOP-led House. Grassley’s move tweaked the White House, but is just that: an annoyance. It’s the same fate that awaits a small-scale, symbolic version to undo the penalties against Canada that immediately [cleared](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/02/nx-s1-5347699/senate-trump-tariffs-canada) the Senate on Wednesday. For now, the Senate map in 2026 still favors Republicans, with retirements of Democrats in toss-up states like New Hampshire, Michigan, and Minnesota giving GOP strategists optimism about adding to their majorities. But the argument for electing Republicans becomes tougher once clothing and grocery bills spike, and housing starts plummet because Canadian lumber is too expensive to frame up a new development. This tit-for-tat trade retribution is an impulse that has long been part of Trump’s worldview. He thinks the United States is getting ripped off, plain and simple. He sees a deck stacked against American manufacturers, and he has the power to remedy this for what he calls the little guy. It’s all guaranteed to be bad politics for a President who returned to office on promises of curbing inflation, driving down costs, and fixing Washington—and his fellow party members who are fine going along. Republicans at the Capitol understand this is going to hurt not just Americans, but their own political futures. It’s why, in a low-key fever, they’re freaking out. But here’s the rub: while they know this is bad for just about everyone, don’t expect them to exercise their congressional authority to get Trump to back off. Their prospects may be bad right now, but they view crossing a President who leads a vindictive movement as even worse. This is not a moment where anyone in Washington is expecting political bravery. Far from it. The question many Republicans in the Capitol are asking themselves: which path will yield the least pain for selfish spoils? It’s a pretty weak way to run a superpower. _Make sense of what matters in Washington._ [_Sign up for the D.C. Brief newsletter_](https://cloud.newsletters.time.com/signup?nln=dc-brief&source=dc%5Fonsite)_._ ## Transcript [00:00] Hearing about the tariff announcement from yesterday. [00:02] I was there. I'm excited. Uh, here we have. [00:04] A president gives a damn about American jobs. [00:06] That's exactly what this is. [00:08] I'm sick and tired of the rest of the world taking [00:10] advantage of our workers and our companies. [00:13] So the rest of the world they want. [00:14] They want to put barriers up to our companies, [00:16] which impacts American jobs. [00:18] That has ended. [00:19] They should reduce their tariffs to zero. [00:21] Stop. Stop making it difficult for American companies to compete. [00:24] I mean, if you look, I believe in trade. [00:26] When I was governor of Florida, [00:27] I did 15 trade missions. I wouldn't trade. [00:30] I think it's really good for for our country and it's good for other countries. [00:33] But this idea that other countries can make it difficult [00:35] for an American company to be successful, [00:38] all they're doing is reducing American jobs. [00:40] We've had 90,000 factories move out of this country since NAFTA. [00:45] It may have worked for the elites in [00:46] the governing class and the people who get rich in Northern Virginia around here, [00:50] but it hasn't worked for real people. [00:51] So we're going to have balance. [00:53] We're going to actually tell these countries, [00:55] you've been ripping us off, [00:57] and we're going to treat you like you treat us. [00:59] So I think if you combine that with tax policy [01:01] of making these tax cuts permanent for working folks. [01:04] You combine that with energy dominance and combine that with regulatory reform. [01:07] You can combine that with not paying [01:09] illegal immigrants taxpayer dollars with a fair trade policy. [01:13] We're going to have prosperity in this country. [01:15] So I mean, paying attention to, you know, [01:16] the stock market this day versus the next day. [01:18] And we could talk about ten year treasuries. [01:19] That actually looks pretty good right now. [01:21] But I think that that misses the point. [01:23] This is a much broader vision of actually taking on [01:27] the forces that have worked against working people for generations. [01:31] I think it's heading us toward a catastrophic economic downturn, [01:37] a recession, along with disastrously rising prices. [01:42] I'm seeing already my constituents in Connecticut fearful, angry, [01:48] deeply troubled by potential job losses, [01:51] as well as higher prices for everything from gas to groceries. [01:55] You've probably never heard of the Manufacturing Extension Partnership. [02:00] It helps small and medium manufacturers Thrive. [02:04] It helps them fix and improve their manufacturing processes and be more productive. [02:10] And I just got noticed last night that it's been shut down, canceled, cut, [02:15] defunded like so much else that this cloud of [02:18] locusts known as Doge has destroyed the impact [02:22] for states all over the country for [02:24] small and medium manufacturers who are critical to our competitive future. [02:28] Of this, I think ill conceived, [02:31] poorly executed last second cut will be lasting. [02:35] President Trump's whole justification for slapping tariffs on [02:39] our closest partners and allies is to bring manufacturing back to the United States, [02:44] and at the exact time that he is harming our relationships around the world, [02:49] making costs higher for working Americans. [02:52] This program that helps small and medium manufacturers grow has been eliminated. [02:57] They don't know what they're doing and the consequences for our economy, [03:01] for our costs, for our families and communities will be harmful and lasting. 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