Support, silence and confusion: Republicans respond to Trump's trade war

President Donald Trump recognizes Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem as he speaks before signing the Laken Riley Act in the East Room of the White House, Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025, in Washington. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-Alex Brandon)

WASHNGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump’s unprecedented move to pull America’s closest neighbours into a trade war has left some Republican lawmakers precariously navigating how to support the leader’s tariff agenda while their local economies brace for impact.

Many Republicans — caught between risking the president’s ire and facing backlash from constituents concerned about rising costs — remained quiet about the damaging duties, set to be deployed Tuesday. Other came out loudly in support.

“Canada needs to come to the table,” Kristi Noem, the former governor of South Dakota and the new head of the Department of Homeland Security, told NBC News on Sunday.

“They need to work with us to make sure that not only can we be good neighbours, but that we can help each other’s economies by getting in line.”

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.

Canada and Mexico quickly announced their intention to push back — 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.

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.

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.

The executive order states Noem will tell the president if Canada has done enough to alleviate the “public health crisis through cooperative enforcement actions” to lift the tariffs. It doesn’t say what measures would suffice.

Many experts say it’s more likely the levies are part of Trump’s 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.

Canadian ministers had been cycling through Washington in recent weeks, meeting with Republican lawmakers and members of Trump’s team in a last-ditch effort to stop the duties. Ministers met Friday with Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar, to discuss Canada’s $1.3 billion border security plan, implemented to appease the president’s concerns.

In an interview on Fox News on Sunday, Homan said he would share the details of that presentation with the president later this week and did not weigh in on whether it might be enough to lift the tariffs.

“I’ll brief him on the meeting I had, but that’s the president’s decision,” Homan said. “I don’t want to get ahead of him on that, but I will brief him on what I heard... so he knows what they have done, what they said they will do.”

Republicans who support Trump’s tariff push repeated the president’s border security claims, despite widespread concerns that the duties will stoke inflation and raise costs for Americans.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott warned Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to be “careful” about imposing retaliatory tariffs.

“The Texas economy is larger than Canada’s. And we’re not afraid to use it,” Abbott posted on social media Saturday.

House Speaker Mike Johnson praised Trump’s tariffs on social media, despite saying last week he didn’t think the duties would happen.

Many are looking for another key figure to weigh in. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has said repeatedly he has not supported across-the-board tariffs and has warned they lead to higher inflation. The South Dakota Republican’s state could be hammered by tariffs.

South Dakota’s largest market is Canada, representing 44 per cent of total exports from the agriculture state. It also imports USD $686 million in goods from Canada annually, including fertilizer and machinery. Mexico is the state’s second largest market.

While many Republicans remained mum, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky was among the exceptions. He posted on social media that “tariffs are simply taxes.”

“Conservatives once united against new taxes. Taxing trade will mean less trade and higher prices,” Paul said.

Don Bacon, a Nebraska congressman, was careful not to criticize the president while expressing confusion over why Canada was being dragged into a trade war. On CNN Saturday, Bacon said Trump likes to use tariffs as a tool for negotiating trade deals.

“With Canada we already have a trade agreement and it was a good trade agreement.,” Bacon said. “And so that’s hard for me to square that circle because we’ve already negotiated a deal with them on this.”

He suggested that Trump focus on China and Russia, adding “they are our adversaries and China does do illegal trade practices.”

Democrats widely condemned Trump’s tariffs, criticizing the president for campaigning on affordability while taking actions likely to raise costs.

“You’re worried about grocery prices. Don’s raising prices with his tariffs,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on social media.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 2, 2025.

Kelly Geraldine Malone, The Canadian Press