We all know there’s not a national emergency in this country regarding Canada. President Trump declared one anyway. He did so because once a national emergency is declared, it unlocks various presidential powers to unilaterally impose tariffs.
National emergency declarations are not reviewable in court. But Congress can terminate a national emergency declaration with a joint resolution. A group of senators has introduced a joint resolution to terminate the emergency declaration regarding Canada.
The resolution is one sentence long. It doesn’t do anything except terminate the emergency declaration. It’s co-sponsored by five Democrats, Independent Angus King (Maine), and Republican Rand Paul (Ky.).
Paul is a Trump supporter yet has been vocally opposed to the president’s tariff agenda. Other Republican senators are no doubt wary of the economic consequences of high tariffs on America’s neighbor, ally, and largest trading partner. They aren’t powerless here, no matter how often they may pretend to be.
Voting for this resolution doesn’t do anything to prevent tariffs on China. Republicans can still say they support Trump’s overall tariff agenda while simply objecting to the most senseless part, tariffs on Canada. They can go back to their constituents and say they did their part to improve Trump’s trade policy. And the more of them who vote for it, the stronger their case will be.
The problem with a joint resolution is that it must be signed by the president to take effect. Trump won’t sign it, of course, so Congress will need a two-thirds majority in both chambers to override his veto. All the Democrats will likely vote for it, simply because it’s overriding Trump (even though some of them support tariffs, too). So it’s a matter of whether a large enough minority of Republicans (20 out of 53 senators and 77 out of 218 representatives) will acknowledge reality and affirm there is no national emergency regarding Canada.
Republicans in Congress aren’t big on acknowledging reality these days, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (S.D.) has already been urging them to vote against the resolution. They should ignore him and listen to their constituents.
Trump’s approval rating on trade is the lowest of seven issue areas in the latest AP-NORC poll. Even among Republican voters, enthusiasm for tariffs is much lower than on other issues such as immigration. A poll from February found tariffs on Canada are supported by only 28 percent of Americans. Expect that number to decline as people feel the tariffs’ harmful effects.
This joint resolution is unlikely to earn the two-thirds support required to override Trump’s inevitable veto. But Republicans in Congress need to eventually realize that they have power of their own that they can exercise independent of Trump. They know better than to impose tariffs on Canada based on a bogus national emergency. They just need to act like it.