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A 10% universal tariff and 30% levies on Chinese imports would have been a five-alarm fire for Republican free-traders just a few months ago. These days, though, most in the party are just happy those tariffs aren’t several times higher.
President Donald Trump’s massive “Liberation Day” tariffs five weeks ago prompted so much unease and confusion that the new US trade baseline of tariffs is borderline placid for many Republicans. Trump launched his initial tariffs at such high rates (reaching a blockade-equivalent 145% on China and over 40% for some other trading partners) that his administration’s recent climbdown has made the remaining levies far more palatable for Republicans.
“There’s a conditioning that’s taken place,” Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D. told Semafor, describing fellow Republicans as “getting more comfortable” with defending the tariffs while professing they’d prefer another approach.
“10[%] isn’t as bad as 30. And 30 isn’t as bad as 145 or 175,” Cramer added. “Suddenly half of that is — I don’t want to say it’s tolerable -- but it’s at least celebrated.”
No policy illustrates Trump’s takeover of the Republican Party more vividly than tariffs. The longtime party of free trade is transitioning into a party of protectionism, ceding its past identity on the issue to Democrats who suddenly are positioning themselves as the party of open global markets.
That change hasn’t necessarily been easy for Republicans to accept. As Cramer noted, many will still make clear they don’t love tariffs even as they defend Trump’s strategy of imposing them in a bid to negotiate what he believes are better deals.
Yet the past few weeks have revealed that congressional Republicans in Congress will only defy the president in limited ways on trade, limiting the political pressure — if there ever was any — to change his strategy. Many Republicans want zero tariffs with important trading partners and more economic certainty; but since all they have to celebrate is temporary tariff pauses, they’ll take the opportunity.
“It’s definitely more manageable,” said Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., of the current situation. “The other wasn’t.”
It’s not clear whether Trump envisions the zero-tariff environment that Republican free traders want, and many are still bracing for him to end 90-day tariff pauses globally as well as with China. What’s more, the president’s stated goal of counting tariff revenue as payment for tax cuts is at odds with his hopes of reshoring US manufacturing lost overseas over the last 30 years.
But Trump’s shift in the Overton Window of the tariff debate has many Republicans relatively content with placeholder agreements that leave in place tariffs which would have been unthinkable last year.
“He threatened real large tariffs he then backed off on to make a deal,” Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D, told Semafor. “My preference still is not to have an increase in costs on the American consumer. Let’s face it, a tariff is basically a sales tax.”
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, another free-trader, called tariffs “a very powerful weapon, but it’s a two-way street, because we still haven’t de-risked our supply chains from China … There’s some collateral impact here on businesses that are doing what he wanted them to do, which is to manufacture and make things in the United States.”
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In private, some Republicans are still smarting over what they see as Trump’s self-inflicted economic wound.
“It’s been disastrous. The objective, I thought and most of my constituents think, is to keep the rest of the world — but China, in particular — from ripping us off. So where do we end up? We end up with slightly higher tariffs on China, but we’ve alienated the rest of the world,” one Republican senator told Semafor.
“If they can’t choreograph a better ending to this, you do have to ask: ‘Has this all been worth it? What are we accomplishing?“’ this GOP senator added.
Trump is operating at times with political impunity, even as his initial tranche of global tariffs created so much economic backlash that he found himself retrenching to focus the burden on China. Those higher tariffs on Beijing met their own temporary delay on Monday.
Along the way, Trump has crushed dissent among Republicans; the White House issued veto threats against a bipartisan bill requiring congressional approval of tariffs and against Senate measures intended to roll back tariffs on allies. One of those measures regarding Canada passed the Senate but went nowhere in the House.
Regardless, the GOP senator said, Republicans “wouldn’t have rebelled about anything” anyway.
The View From Republican Leadership
The party’s top rungs of Republicans set the tone in Congress. And Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D, long a critic of tariffs, has given Trump space to do what he feels he needs to do.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has similarly let little daylight show between himself and Trump on tariffs.
“Tariffs are tools. And it’s a tool to help get other people that haven’t been treating us fairly, to treat us fairly. It’s all part of the negotiating process. And President Trump’s the master dealmaker,” said Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo.
Burgess’s view
It’s clear that congressional Republicans’ economic agenda is mostly centered around tax cuts these days, not free trade. You even see some newer, more populist Republicans proposing more tariffs.
If Trump hadn’t won a second term, I would have guessed the GOP would go back to its previous trade orthodoxy. Now that doesn’t look like it will happen anytime soon — especially not with Vice President JD Vance, a big tariff fan, waiting in the wings.
And the relatively lower tariff rates as of this week have made it easier for pro-trade Republicans to tolerate the situation. Cramer likened the ups and downs to “the sticker price on a college education. And then you meet with the admissions people, and it’s, ‘Oh, it’s not as bad as I thought.’”
Room for Disagreement
At least one tariff skeptic in the party is still prepared to criticize Trump publicly.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., conceded in an interview that the tariff regime has improved over the past few weeks. But even though a 30 percent tariff on Chinese goods is “less bad than 145%,” it’s “still bad.”
“It’s complicated, because it’s not just China, it’s the whole world that is being tariffed. Even a 10% tariff on the whole world could raise prices 5 or 10%. Who knows?” Paul said.
Notable
- The Washington Post has a nice rundown of where the Trump tariffs stand.
- Businesses are rushing to beat the 90-day tariff pause, according to NPR.