Republican senators sound alarm on Trump tariff proposal

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said during a Tuesday press conference how there is a lot of concern among Senate Republicans that President Trump’s proposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports “could metastasize into a larger trade war.”    Several GOP senators, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., on Tuesday, joined in warning of perceived potential dangers associated with President Donald Trump’s proposal to impose global tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.
   Trump announced last Thursday he intends to assess blanket tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum.
   The pending actions apparently were enough to prompt National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn to announce his resignation Tuesday evening.
   White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders on Wednesday told reporters that there’s no set date for Cohn’s official departure.
   Sanders added that she expects Trump will finalize the “Section 232” tariffs – which are enabled through a statutory national security justification – late this week or early next week, adding that she doesn’t anticipate he will sign an official proclamation during a visit to Pittsburgh International Airport scheduled for Saturday to highlight recently enacted tax cuts.
   “I wouldn’t anticipate that that happens,” she said, according to a White House press pool report. “That’s a separate type of event.”
   McConnell said during a Tuesday press conference that “there is a lot of concern” among Senate Republicans that Trump’s proposed tariffs “could metastasize into a larger trade war, and many of our members are discussing with the administration just how broad, how sweeping, this might be. And there’s a high level of concern about interfering with what appears to be an economy that’s taking off in every respect.”
   Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told reporters on Tuesday that he thinks Trump is floating the tariffs, in part, as a trade negotiating tactic, which Johnson described as “dangerous.”
   “It is probably true in a trade war, we might be able to win it, because I think everybody else has far more to lose,” Johnson said. “We are the world’s largest customer. By the way, in the business world, generally, customers are treated very well by their suppliers. I think that type of trade position helps us in our foreign policy. But you disrupt those supply chains, there’s an awful lot of collateral damage done in trying to win that war, and my guess is, even if you win the war, you might not like the results.”
   Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, told reporters he believes Trump will end up modifying the tariffs from his proposal last week.
   During a moderated two-person trade debate co-hosted by the George Washington University Center for International Business Education and Research and the Association of Women in International Trade on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, Peterson Institute for International Economics senior fellow Chad Bown said the proposed tariffs, if activated, could result in a “lose-lose” scenario for the U.S., as they could generate sanctioned retaliation should the World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute mechanism deem them violative of WTO rules, or could generate potentially direct retaliation if the WTO deems the Section 232 measures comply with WTO rules.
   But Stewart and Steward Managing Partner Terence Stewart noted that countries take a “wide variety” of trade actions commonly.
   “This is one of the few instances where you see people running around, looking to see if the sky is falling, which is kind of interesting,” Stewart said. “There’s a lot of discussion among trading partners who are unhappy with the articulation of a national security remedy, who are saying, ‘We will defend our interest; we will defend our interest.’ Well, if they’re scofflaws, and they simply do whatever they want…then you have a problem.”
   In formal response to Trump’s preliminarily announced tariffs, the European Commission released a plan for offsetting the expected actions, announcing that it intends to “react proportionally in line with World Trade Organization…guidelines” if the EU is included in any forthcoming Section 232 remedy.
   EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom in a statement said the EU hopes it will be excluded from any tariffs as a “USA security partner.”
   McConnell added during the press conference, “There are other steps [Trump] needs to take, and we’re looking forward to seeing what he decides to do.”