House Republicans are moving to block Democrats from forcing a vote on President Donald Trump’s controversial tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China.
GOP leadership slipped language into a House rule on their stopgap funding bill that would prevent any member of Congress from bringing up a resolution terminating Trump’s declaration of a national emergency over fentanyl and undocumented immigrants entering the U.S. The president has used that emergency declaration to justify his tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China.
Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) and Democratic colleagues filed privileged resolutions last week seeking to terminate the national emergency. As Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.) noted in a release announcing the resolutions, “The legal foundation of IEEPA, the National Emergencies Act, allows Congress to introduce a privileged resolution to terminate the authority, which must be brought to the House for a floor vote within 15 days.”
Republicans’ rule, which the House is voting on this afternoon, would block a vote on Meeks’ resolution, or any similar effort, by declaring that the remainder of days in the first session of the 119th Congress do not qualify as calendar days, exempting the national emergency from a law that allows Congress to force a vote. GOP leaders argue it would protect Trump’s authority on both tariffs and border security.
“This provision simply prevents the Democrats from limiting the president’s authority,” said a senior House GOP leadership aide.
Conservatives privately say House GOP leaders wanted to block a vote on tariffs for the entire Congress. But some Republicans pushed back, saying they would only allow it for the rest of this calendar year.
Democrats argue it would forfeit lawmakers’ ability to legislate tariffs, which are traditionally only authorized by Congress.
“Guess what [Republicans] tucked into this rule, hoping that nobody would notice?” Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), the ranking member of the House Rules Committee, said on the House floor on Tuesday as he urged his colleagues to vote “no” on the rule. “They slipped in a little clause letting them escape ever having to debate or vote on Trump’s tariffs. Isn’t that clever?”
Trump has relied on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose tariffs on China, Canada and Mexico, though a large chunk of those have now been paused. The 1977 law gives the president broad authority to control international transactions after declaring a national emergency, but it’s never been used before to impose tariffs.
Congress can approve a joint resolution to end a national emergency declared by the president. But that’s currently a tall order, since Republicans control both the House and the Senate and are loathe to vote against the president’s agenda. At the same time, there is growing unease about the impact the tariffs are having on the stock market and wide swathes of the U.S. economy, raising the political risks of a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ vote and making it more likely some in the GOP would split with their party. A floor vote would be particularly difficult for Republicans from agriculture-heavy states, where Trump’s tariffs on Canada and Mexico — American farmers’ largest export markets — are raising fears of retaliation.
Rachael Bade contributed to this report.
