The Senate just threw a symbolic punch at President Donald Trump’s trade agenda. On Wednesday night, senators voted to block Trump’s tariffs on Canada. It was a rare bipartisan moment that sends a message more than it changes policy.
The push came from an unlikely duo: Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine from Virginia and Republican Sen. Rand Paul from Kentucky. Together, they led the charge against what they see as an abuse of executive power.
Republican Senators Mitch McConnell, Lisa Murkowski, and Susan Collins joined Democrats in voting to end the national emergency declaration that gave Trump the legal basis to impose the tariffs in the first place.
VISIT OUR YOUTUBE CHANNELBREAKING🚨: U.S. Senate votes 50-46 to end President Trump’s tariffs on Canada.
The four Republicans who crossed party lines to oppose the tariff pic.twitter.com/rPl6epfAMu— Officer Lew (@officer_Lew) October 29, 2025
Just a day earlier, the Senate had voted to kill Trump’s 50% tariffs on imports from Brazil. That measure passed too, with help from five Republicans.
North Carolina’s Thom Tillis supported the Brazil resolution but voted against blocking the Canada tariffs. Both votes only needed a simple majority to pass.
Kaine and Paul made their case crystal clear in The Washington Post. “Massive tariffs on close trading partners such as Brazil and Canada are ill-advised abuses of presidential power that will make Americans poorer,” they wrote.
Then they went further:
“Further, Trump is misusing an unrelated emergency statute to do it. His reckless, unconstitutional actions risk sending our country full steam ahead into economic chaos.”
Even Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell sided with them on this one. He said he voted yes because these tariffs are hurting his own people back home. “These tariffs have increased prices for Kentucky families and hurt our agriculture industry,” McConnell said.
Still, don’t expect this resolution to go anywhere. The House isn’t picking it up. Speaker Mike Johnson doesn’t plan to bring it to the floor, which means the whole thing stops there.
All of this started after President Trump decided to jack up tariffs on Canadian imports to 35%. The move came after an Ontario government-funded ad hit the air, showing Ronald Reagan warning about the dangers of protectionism. The ad featured Reagan saying that tariffs “hurt every American worker and consumer.”
Here’s the clip if you’re curious:
WATCH:
The White House, of course, is defending the tariffs. Officials say they’re a necessary move to protect American jobs and rebuild manufacturing at home. According to them, Canada’s trade behavior — especially in agriculture and steel — has been unfair to U.S. workers for years.
And here is the beginning of the clip Canada left out, the part where Reagan said that using tariffs against unfair trade practices is good. That’s exactly what Trump has been doing. He spelled it out more times than we can count. Countries around the world have been unfair to American workers, and Trump is fixing it with his tariff policies.
WATCH:
I just happened to have the opening from the original I clipped back in April.
Reagan was fairly clear about using tariffs when there are “unfair trade practices” at play. pic.twitter.com/2F3YzzzAP2
— Jocular Josh 🇺🇸 (@lifeasjosh) October 24, 2025
Vice President J.D. Vance backed that argument when talking to reporters after a Senate GOP luncheon. “Tariffs give us the ability to put American workers first,” Vance said.
He added:
“They force American industry to reinvest in the United States of America instead of a foreign country. They’re also incredible leverage for the president of the United States in negotiating these trade deals overseas.”
It’s not the first time the Senate has taken a swing at Trump’s emergency trade powers. Earlier this year, senators voted to roll back his declaration related to the Canada tariffs. Paul, McConnell, Murkowski, and Collins joined Democrats back then, too, raising the same concerns about executive overreach and economic fallout.
The administration says the tariffs are part of a bigger plan to fix unfair trade practices and strengthen production here at home. Trump himself insists he’s using emergency powers the right way. He says the tariffs are temporary and meant to push allies and competitors to the negotiating table.
And this isn’t over. Lawmakers are already talking about more votes this week that could challenge the president’s trade authority. A bipartisan group of Democrats — again with Rand Paul in the mix — is preparing another resolution to strip away those emergency powers altogether.
The White House hasn’t said whether Trump would veto anything that limits his ability to impose tariffs. But the trade team has made it clear: they think these tariffs are key to keeping leverage in global talks, no matter who’s sitting across the table.
I don’t see the House passing such a bill, and the beauty of our system is that Trump can veto bills that attack his policies if they make it to his desk.
MAGA
#trumptariffs #uspolitics #maganews
