‘Not a fan of tariffs’: Kentucky’s Paul, McConnell unite on this rare issue against Trump

Former President Donald Trump has managed to forge a rare policy alignment: uniting Kentucky’s Republican senators against his aggressive tariff policy.

If Trump returns to the White House, a central tenet of his economic revitalization plan is expected to be the imposition of high tariffs on foreign imports.

“Tariffs are the greatest thing ever invented,” the former president asserted at a recent town hall in Michigan.

But both Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul, who are often at loggerheads ideologically, have expressed swift opposition to Trump’s proposal.

“I’m not a fan of tariffs; they raise the prices for American consumers,” McConnell told reporters inside the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday. “I’m more of a free-trade kind of Republican that remembers how many jobs are created by the exports that we engage in. So, I’m not a tariff fan.”

During a Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee this week, Paul sung from McConnell’s hymnbook, calling on Washington to reject “its insatiable desire to impose sanctions on China.”

Trump wants varying “substantial tariffs,” including 60% on goods from China, 200% on Mexican auto imports and 10% on all other foreign goods.

Paul, who has yet to endorse Trump’s 2024 candidacy, ascribed the political gravitation towards tariffs as “economic ignorance.”

“I don’t think people understand that international trade makes us richer,” Paul told podcaster Bari Weiss. “When you look at specifically just trade with China over the last 20 years, the average American is $1,500 richer because Chinese products have saved them $1,500 annually.”

When considering all countries, Americans save about $7,000 annually due to improved purchasing power offered by open trade, according to Paul.

Teamsters National Black Caucus Chair James Curbeam cited estimates that Trump’s tariff plan would raise costs for the typical middle class family by $4,000 a year.

One of the risks of expanded tariffs is retaliation towards U.S. exports that could in turn make certain products more expensive for Americans.

Businessman Mark Cuban argued that targeted tariffs in certain cases make sense. For instance, if China is subsidizing steel so that their companies are able to sell the material to the U.S. at a lower price, some Democrats say it makes sense to support strategic tariffs.

“Strategic tariffs should always be looked at as a potential tool,” said Cuban. “Where it turns into lunacy across-the-board tariffs. To say that we’re going to tariff 10% or 20% or 60% for China or any other countries, that’s just inflationary and that’s just a tax on the American people. That’s a sale tax through and through.”

McConnell and Paul’s opposition to higher tariffs signals that Trump would have a tough time getting his plan through the Senate next year, particularly if Republicans control the chamber.

“I don’t need them. I don’t need Congress, but they’ll approve it,” Trump predicted at an event this week. “I’ll have the right to impose them myself if they don’t. I’d rather get their support. The ones that understand business all support it.”

Paul expected Trump to go over the heads of Congress.

That’s why he introduced a bill that seeks to curb the president’s ability “to tax Americans by implementing tariffs without congressional approval.”

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