WASHINGTON – Republicans are changing the rules of the House on Wednesday to prevent Democrats from forcing a vote on stopping President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) slipped language into a procedural measure that would bar action on legislation aimed at terminating the national emergency that Trump declared to impose his worldwide tariffs.

The move is a remarkable show of fealty to Trump, whose tariffs have rattled global stock markets and caused profound anxiety even among Republicans, who have traditionally favored free trade policies rather than protectionism. It’s also an embarrassing display of Republicans weakening their own roles as legislators.

“I’ve made it very clear, I think the president has executive authority,” Johnson told the Wall Street Journal in response to a question about the rules change.

“It’s an appropriate level of authority to deal with the unfair trade practices — that’s part of the role of the president is to negotiate with other countries,” he said. “Right now, as recently as last night, he told me I think they’re almost 70 countries that are at some stage of negotiation of more fair trade agreements with the United States.”

Trump himself seemed to be having second thoughts about destroying the global economy: he abruptly announced Wednesday that he’s scaling back tariffs on all countries, except for China.

But Republicans are still moving forward with preventing themselves from intervening in his plans, as destructive as they may be. Ahead of the procedural vote, Democrats ripped their GOP colleagues for being too scared to take on the president’s recklessness.

“A vote for this rule is a vote for Trump’s tariffs,” said Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.). “Anyone who claims to want to retake congressional authority over trade and tariffs must vote against this rule.”

“Republicans are hiding from taking a vote that would put them on the record on tariffs,” Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.) said on social media. “They should be standing up for you, not rolling over for Trump.”

The National Emergencies Act, the law Trump used to impose his worldwide “reciprocal” tariffs, states that if lawmakers introduce a resolution to nullify the emergency, it has to get a vote within 15 days. DelBene and other Democrats, led by Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), on Tuesday introduced such a resolution. Johnson’s rules change blocks it by simply stating that days between Wednesday and September “shall not constitute a calendar day for purposes of section 202 of the National Emergencies Act.”

The House will vote on the rule, which also sets up procedures for later votes on other measures, on Wednesday afternoon.

The language still leaves the door open to the House potentially voting on other bills aimed at reining in Trump’s power on tariffs, such as through a discharge petition, though that would require several Republicans to join with Democrats in what would be a pretty strong rebuke of the president.

But even if the Senate approves a resolution killing Trump’s emergency, House lawmakers couldn’t follow suit unless Johnson wanted to do so.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), the lone GOP cosponsor of the Senate version of the House resolution, slammed House Republicans for “the audacity and the arrogance” of blocking a vote.

“They have passed a rule saying that, you know, not that day is night, but the days don’t exist at all, that we aren’t going to have any calendar days, because miraculously, by rule, we have decreed there are no days,” Paul told HuffPost. “I think that is insulting, but it’s also, you got to wonder whether or not it’s actually lawful for a rule to overturn a law.”

He added, “The stock market lost over $6 trillion in two days last week. I think to people looking at their retirement account, this is more than idle speculation and idle debate. This is about the well-being of their retirement, and it’s about the well-being of the economy.”

Most Senate Republicans are holding off on joining Paul to give Trump more time to negotiate trade deals with individual countries, which they hope would calm financial markets.

“You already see [South] Korea and Japan coming to negotiate,” Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) said. “And I’m thinking that what you may see is the Trump team negotiating with these other countries and working to put more pressure on China to come to the table.”