Within hours of President Trump announcing new tariffs on nearly all imports to the United State, the U.S. Senate has passed a resolution sponsored by Senators Rand Paul (R-KY) and Tim Kaine (D-VA) that would block Trump’s tariffs on imports from Canada.
Paul’s opposition to the tariffs is based, in part, on the president enacting a tax whose cost will be borne by Americans.
In remarks made before the Senate, Paul reminded his colleagues that Founding Fathers feared the power of taxation so much that “they gave it only to Congress,” as he warned, “Americans know tariffs are a tax they are going to have to pay.”
Rand Paul today on blocking Trump’s tariffs on imports from Canada: “Despite arguments to the contrary, Americans know tariffs are a tax they are going to have to pay.”
The Founding Fathers “so feared the power of taxation that they gave it only to Congress.”
“I stand to speak… pic.twitter.com/kTtk9kwvVc
— Rand Paul Review (@RandPaulReview) April 3, 2025
In speaking against the tariffs, Paul stated that he was standing to speak “against the idea of skipping democracy, of skipping the constitutional republic, of rejecting our founding principles.”
Paul called for Congress to vote on the matter, saying, “This is a tax, plain and simple. Taxes should not be enacted by one person.”
Three other Republican members of the Senate, including former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R–Ky.), Sens. Susan Collins (R–ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R–AK) and nearly every Democrat joined Paul in voting for the resolution which would cancel Trump’s economic emergency declaration issued in early February.
Paul told his Senate colleagues on Wednesday that the $400 billion in goods that Canada exports to the U.S. each year does not constitute a threat, noting, “We’re not at war with Canada. They’re an ally that buys more of our stuff than almost any other country in the world.”
The Senator from Kentucky also warned that tariffs could carry political as well as economic risks as he reminded members of the Senate that the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 cost the GOP control of Congress for over 60 years.
Paul also invoked the consequences of President McKinley enacting tariffs in 1890, after which Republicans lost 50% of their seats.
Rand Paul on Trump’s tariffs: When McKinley put tariffs on in 1890, they lost 50% of their seats… When Smoot-Hawley put their tariffs In the early 1930s, we lost the House and Senate for 60 years. So not only bad economically, they are bad politically.
pic.twitter.com/3idOopOPJV— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) April 3, 2025
Pushback against the GOP Senators’ opposition the tariffs was significant with Trump calling them “unbelievably disloyal” and accusing them of “playing with the lives of the American people” and playing “into the hands of the Radical Left Democrats and Drug Cartels.”
Rand Paul is wrong. Of course we are not at war with Canada. We don’t trade at all with who we are at war with. Americans are disadvantaged based on Canadian economic export policies. Canada does great by overcharging Americans.
Canada has now removed their tariffs which makes Paul’s unreasonable argument moot. Let’s see what he and his Kentucky brother, Mitch, as well as Kaine, now have to say. Dittos for the RINO Sisterhood.