Five Republican Senators Caution Trump about Pain from Tariffs

Senators warn Trump, but Trump won’t listen.

Republican Senators Try to Curb Tariffs

Color it hopeless, but Republican Senators Try to Curb Influence of Trump Tariff Hawk

President Trump has peppered the first month of his presidency with trade actions even before the bulk of his trade team is in place.

U.S. Trade Representative nominee Jamieson Greer still doesn’t have a slot for a confirmation vote before the full Senate. Commerce Secretary nominee Howard Lutnick, who Trump has said will lead the trade agenda, is likely to be confirmed this week, but likewise hasn’t been in office for the major trade decisions so far.

In their absence, a singular figure has risen as a leader of the trade agenda: Peter Navarro, the president’s special counselor on trade and manufacturing, known for his pugnacious personality and maximalist approach to tariffs.

The influence of Navarro, one of a few of Trump’s first-term inner circle returning for a second run, is causing some consternation on Capitol Hill, especially among Republicans with agriculture or manufacturing in their states. They have expressed concern about the White House’s no-exceptions approach to tariffs and how that approach might spark inflation and retaliation from other countries.

“That’s why we gotta get Greer confirmed,” said Sen. Thom Tillis (R., N.C.), when asked about Navarro’s influence on recent trade actions.

Tillis has been more out front than many GOP senators in criticizing Trump’s team, raising concerns about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth before eventually voting to confirm him. But several other Republican senators expressed anxiety over the maximalism of Trump’s early tariff actions when asked about Navarro, even if they wouldn’t mention his role outright.

In particular, GOP senators worried about Trump’s decision not to include a carve-out process for the steel and aluminum tariffs, which would allow companies to apply for exemptions from the duties.

“Even the president has admitted there’s going to be pain [from tariffs], and I think in Wisconsin we’re going to have a lot of people experiencing that pain,” said Sen. Ron Johnson (R., Wis.), who said he expressed his misgivings to Trump’s former trade chief, Robert Lighthizer, when he spoke to a Senate GOP lunch last week.

“I’m hoping the administration is going to be sensitive to that and help alleviate that,” Johnson said, noting that Greer is a Lighthizer acolyte who served as his chief of staff throughout the first term.

Few, if any, GOP lawmakers expect Greer to shy away from protectionist stances, but they hope he will follow Lighthizer in injecting some legal and economic nuance into the policies.

Many also hope that Greer and Lutnick will be more sympathetic to their concerns than Navarro. North Dakota Sen. Kevin Cramer, a close Trump ally, said he still has “PTSD” from a meeting when he was a House member in Trump’s first term, during which several GOP caucus members stormed out because Navarro “clearly wasn’t listening” to their concerns.

Cramer, like other GOP skeptics of Navarro, said he hopes Greer and Lutnick can inject some limitations into future trade actions, such as exemptions. “I think that’s why he was chosen,” Cramer said of the USTR nominee, adding that he doesn’t yet have “that much heartburn” about Navarro.

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, one of the few avowed free traders left in the GOP senate caucus, was hesitant to lay the blame at Navarro’s feet, arguing that the president himself is a tariff maximalist. “In my state, farmers say that tariffs hurt them, and they’re still hurting them from the tariffs on China back in 2018,” he said.

Sen. Bill Hagerty (R., Tenn.), a big Trump ally, said many companies will soon be clamoring for carve-outs from the tariffs.

But Hagerty and other Trump allies said the potential collateral damage from tariffs is taking a back seat to the president’s desire to move quickly on tariffs and reshape global trading relationships.

“He’s impatient about wanting to get these things addressed,” Hagerty said.