{"id":15051,"date":"2025-02-04T07:27:35","date_gmt":"2025-02-04T07:27:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/torontotribune.ca\/index.php\/2025\/02\/04\/support-silence-and-confusion-republicans-respond-to-trumps-trade-war-national\/"},"modified":"2025-02-04T07:27:35","modified_gmt":"2025-02-04T07:27:35","slug":"support-silence-and-confusion-republicans-respond-to-trumps-trade-war-national","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/torontotribune.ca\/index.php\/2025\/02\/04\/support-silence-and-confusion-republicans-respond-to-trumps-trade-war-national\/","title":{"rendered":"Support, silence and confusion: Republicans respond to Trump\u2019s trade war – National"},"content":{"rendered":"


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U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s unprecedented move to pull America\u2019s closest neighbours into a trade war has left some Republican lawmakers precariously navigating how to\u00a0support\u00a0the leader\u2019s tariff agenda while their local economies brace for impact.<\/p>\n

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Many Republicans \u2014 caught between risking the president\u2019s ire and facing backlash from constituents concerned about rising costs \u2014 remained quiet about the damaging duties, set to be deployed Tuesday. Other came out loudly in\u00a0support.<\/p>\n

\u201cCanada needs to come to the table,\u201d Kristi Noem, the former governor of South Dakota and the new head of the Department of Homeland Security, told NBC News on Sunday.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThey need to work with us to make sure that not only can we be good neighbours, but that we can help each other\u2019s economies by getting in line.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Trump signed executive orders Saturday to hit imports from Canada and Mexico with damaging duties amounting to 10 per cent on Canadian energy and 25 per cent on everything else.<\/p>\n

Canada and Mexico quickly announced their intention to push back \u2014 despite the fact that the order includes a retaliation clause that says if the countries respond with duties on American products, the levies could be increased.<\/p>\n

The president has linked the tariffs to what he calls the illegal flow of people and fentanyl across the border. U.S Customs and Border Protection statistics show less than one per cent of all fentanyl seized in the U.S. comes from the northern border.<\/p>\n

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Trump expanded an earlier emergency declaration at the southern border to the north and issued the tariffs through the International Economic Emergency Powers Act (IEEPA). No president has used IEEPA for tariffs and it remains to be seen if the order will survive legal challenges.<\/p>\n

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The executive order states Noem will tell the president if Canada has done enough to alleviate the \u201cpublic health crisis through cooperative enforcement actions\u201d to lift the tariffs. It doesn\u2019t say what measures would suffice.<\/p>\n

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Many experts say it\u2019s more likely the levies are part of Trump\u2019s plan to fill federal coffers through an extensive tariff agenda, while also rattling Canada and Mexico ahead of a mandatory review of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement.<\/p>\n

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