Senator Coons Denounces President Trump’s Canada Tariffs on Senate Floor; Resolution to Repeal Tariffs Passes 51-48
The resolution did pass, 51-48. Senator Coons is a cosponsor of the resolution.
A video and transcript of Senator Coons’ remarks are available below.
SENATOR COONS: Mr. President, I rise to bring the attention of this body to a broken promise by our president.
Our president promised in the campaign, and recently in an address to all of us here in Congress, to make America affordable again. To deal with the high prices – groceries, of fruits and vegetables, of housing, of housing supplies, of energy – to deal with high prices. Millions of Americans who voted for President Trump said they did so out of frustration about high prices. Well today, President Trump has announced he is going to impose tariffs on virtually every trading partner we have, and I rise in support of a piece of legislation we’re about to vote on here in the Senate that gives us a chance to do something.
So to my colleagues, if you’ve heard as I have from your constituents, calling with concern and alarm about how much prices have not gone down, but have gone up, I recommend you think about one country: one of our most trusted and loyal allies, some of the nicest people on the planet.
Who doesn’t like Canadians? Canadians have served alongside us in virtually every war we’ve ever fought. They are a NATO ally and partner, and for my small but mighty State of Delaware, our major export destination and the nation from which we import the most. And yet, because of an emergency at our border – which I think is wholly unjustified by the data of how little fentanyl actually comes into our country across the northern border – President Trump is moving ahead with slapping tariffs on Canada.
Tonight you have a chance, I say to my colleagues, to vote to undo the declaration of an “emergency” on our northern border. You can vote to undo the harm to businesses, to small families, to retirement accounts. Don’t look at your 401(k) if you want to know tomorrow the consequences of indiscriminately slapping tariffs on every one of our major trading partners. This is not Liberation Day, but Tax Day – a new national sales tax that will harm the imports we buy from virtually every country, and because of the countervailing tariffs, harm our exports.
A tariff is a tax. Tonight we will take a vote, and I hope some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will join with Senator Kaine and many of us in recognizing it is ludicrous to use the special emergency powers that Congress gave to the president assuming he would only do so in a case of war or active open hostility, not in the case of one of our trusted and loyal partners and allies, the great and kind people of Canada.
In recent meetings with Canadian leaders, they’ve said ‘Don’t make us do it. Don’t make us impose tariffs on you.’ But tonight, the Trump administration has imposed tariffs on dozens and dozens of our trading partners. To my friends and colleagues, let’s vote to undo this phony crisis and vote to undo the tariffs on US-Canada trade. Thank you.