Texas governor Greg Abbot is worried that Trump’s trade and
tariff policies will badly hurt Texas.
"The
president has great confidence that it will end well," Cornyn, the Senate's No. 2 Republican,
said on a call with Texas reporters. "But in the meantime, there is a lot
of disruption and anxiety over its impacts on the economy and on jobs and on
consumer prices."
That nudge
capped off a day in which senators in both parties once again urged the Trump
administration to reconsider its snarling trade agenda.
Members of the
Senate Finance Committee did the heavy lifting by unloading on Commerce
Secretary Wilbur Ross at a hearing on Capitol Hill, using the occasion to leave
no doubt about the ongoing policy divide between Congress and the White House
over trade.
The panel's GOP
chairman, Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, led the charge by saying that the trade
tiff was "taxing American families," "putting American jobs at
risk" and "destroying markets."
But Cornyn also
used a White House meeting Wednesday — which focused on
the issue of child separations on the border but covered other ground
— as another chance to push Trump, Ross and others to approach trade "in a way
that is not harmful to Texas and the U.S. economy."
If recent
history is any guide, those efforts are unlikely to make a difference.
The White House
just this week threatened to impose hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of
tariffs on Chinese goods, even after lawmakers in both parties have urged the
president to move with caution in a trade war that's now enveloped close U.S.
allies including Canada and Mexico. . . .
And lawmakers
appear content to talk, rather than act, when it comes to Trump's trade tenor.
GOP leaders in
the Senate have blocked legislation that would give Congress the ability to
veto certain tariffs imposed by the president. That dynamic caused Sen. Bob
Corker, R-Tenn., to mock Cornyn
on the Senate floor last week for not doing enough to stand up to Trump.
The blistering
criticism on Wednesday nevertheless stood out.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said the
White House was promoting a "government-run mercantilist economy as
opposed to a free-market economy." Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., said Trump's
approach was about "economic nationalism" rather than national
security.
Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., said bluntly
that "this thing seems to be escalating out of control fairly
quickly."
Hatch lamented
that Trump's actions have provoked retaliatory tariffs that are hurting
American industries, ranging from manufacturing to agriculture. He said he
doesn't "see how the damage posed on all of these sectors could possibly
advance our national security."
Trump’s
policies are not those of these conservative Republicans. When are Trump supporters going to be honest
and stop calling themselves ‘conservative
Republicans.”
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