A Republican senator is raising concerns about the possible economic consequences of Donald Trump’s new tariffs.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., a prominent libertarian, has been one of the few voices in the GOP openly criticizing the president’s latest round of tariffs. Paul has been warning for months about the dangers of protectionist policies, first raising concerns last fall about the impact they could have on the U.S. economy.
Now, Paul is warning that the tariffs could bring political consequences as well—potentially spelling disaster for Republicans.
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, he said that beyond disrupting markets, the tariffs have also “led to political decimation.”
“When [former President William] McKinley most famously put tariffs on in 1890, they lost 50 percent of their seats in the national election,” Paul warned, according to DailyMail.com. “When [Smoot-Hawley] put on their tariff in the early 1930s, we lost the House and the Senate for 60 years. So they’re not only bad economically, they’re bad politically.”
He also ripped the new tariff regime during a speech on the floor of the Senate on Wednesday, the outlet reported.
“Despite arguments to the contrary, Americans know tariffs are a tax they are going to have to pay,” said Paul. “This is a tax, plain and simple. Taxes should not be enacted by one person.”
He was also one of four Republican senators who voted in favor of a resolution on Wednesday evening to reverse Trump’s 25 percent tariffs on Canadian imports.
Joining him were Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky—all breaking ranks with the president’s new economic measures targeting the U.S.’s northern neighbor.
The lawmakers pushed for a distinction in tariff rates between U.S. allies and adversaries, arguing that friendly nations like Canada shouldn’t face the same economic penalties as geopolitical rivals.
By siding with all Senate Democrats, they handed the minority party a rare legislative victory in the Republican-controlled chamber.
“We’re not at war with Canada,” Paul said on the Senate floor. “They’re an ally that buys more of our stuff than almost any other country in the world.”
According to the United Nations COMTRADE database, Canada bought approximately $350 billion in goods from the United States last year. In contrast, the U.S. imported more than $410 billion worth of goods from Canada in 2024.
Following the vote earlier this week, Paul’s Kentucky colleague, former GOP Senate leader McConnell said: “With so much at stake globally, the last thing we need is to pick fights with the very friends with whom we should be working with to protect against China’s predatory and unfair trade practices.”
Vice President JD Vance declared this week that for “the first time in probably 40 years,” the United States has a leader in Trump who is reversing the trend of the U.S. serving as a “piggy bank” for the rest of the world.
In an interview on Fox News, Vance spoke about President Trump’s long-promised, sweeping set of baseline tariffs on all trading partners and what he described as “kind reciprocal” tariffs on nations he argued were the worst offenders in trade relations with the U.S.
“During the first Trump administration, everybody said that Trump’s tariffs were going to be inflationary back then. What actually happened? We had 1.5 percent inflation,” Vance told host Lawrence Jones. “We had the fastest growing economy in a generation. And we had the beginning of a manufacturing renaissance in the United States of America.
“Then, of course, we had four terrible years of the Biden Administration,” Vance continued. “But I think it’s useful for all of us to step back and ask us, ask ourselves, what has the globalist economy gotten of the United States of America? And the answer is, fundamentally, it’s based on two principles – incurring a huge amount of debt to buy things that other countries make for us.
“To make it a little bit more crystal clear, we borrow money from Chinese peasants to buy the things those Chinese peasants manufacture,” he added.
“That is not a recipe for economic prosperity. It’s not a recipe for low prices. And it’s not a recipe for good jobs in the United States of America. For 40 years, we have gone down that pathway. We’ve seen closing factories. We’ve seen rising inflation. We’ve seen the cost of housing so high that most Americans can’t afford to buy a home right now. President Trump is taking this economy in a different direction,” Vance said.
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