Republican senator predicts Congress will try to vote down Trump tariffs on Mexico

.

Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, said Tuesday he believes Congress would engage in a bipartisan vote to disapprove of President Trump’s new tariffs on Mexico, should they go into effect next week.

The senator also said Trump would face considerable Republican opposition if he tried to veto such a resolution of disapproval.

“I think actually what will happen is, if the tariffs do go into effect on Monday, which is the first 5%, I do think Congress is likely to have a vote, because the president is doing this under these International Emergency Economic [Powers Act], the IEEPA, which is going to require another vote of disapproval,” Portman, a former U.S. trade representative during the Bush administration, told CNBC Tuesday.

Portman compared the situation to the showdown in March when Congress voted against the president declaring a national emergency in order to redirect funds to build a border wall with Mexico. Trump vetoed the resolution opposing the move, and the lawmakers were not able to override him. This time, it could play out differently, Portman argued.

“I don’t know what would happen here, because last time, it was about essentially shifting money from the military construction funding that we had already appropriated into the border, particularly into the fencing,” Portman said. “This time it would be about imposing tariffs, which, for a lot of Republicans, you know, it’s a tax, it’s a tax borne mostly by consumers, most people think, but it’s a different kind of a question, so I don’t know how that would come out, so I hope we don’t go down that road.”

Trump said Thursday he would place a 5% tariff on all Mexican goods, increasing 5% every month until the “illegal immigration problem is remedied.” The tariffs are set to go into effect on Monday if a deal is not reached before then.

A Mexican delegation is in Washington, D.C., this week in an effort to resolve the situation. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador told reporters Tuesday he believed that a deal was close that would end the tariff threat.

Business groups and GOP lawmakers have called on the president to back away from the threats, saying the tariffs would likely harm the U.S. economy without resolving the border issue. Mexico has warned of possible trade retaliation of its own.

Related Content

Related Content