{"id":8650,"date":"2025-04-29T20:32:33","date_gmt":"2025-04-29T20:32:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/trumps-trade-rep-attempts-to-soothe-senate-gops-tariff-concerns-ahead-of-vote\/"},"modified":"2025-04-29T20:32:33","modified_gmt":"2025-04-29T20:32:33","slug":"trumps-trade-rep-attempts-to-soothe-senate-gops-tariff-concerns-ahead-of-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/trumps-trade-rep-attempts-to-soothe-senate-gops-tariff-concerns-ahead-of-vote\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s trade rep attempts to soothe Senate GOP\u2019s tariff concerns ahead of vote"},"content":{"rendered":"
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President Donald Trump\u2019s top trade adviser attempted to soothe Senate Republicans alarmed by the president\u2019s aggressive trade policies ahead of a potential vote to reject the executive branch\u2019s sweeping power to enact tariffs.<\/p>\n

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer attended the Senate GOP lunch on Capitol Hill on Tuesday after lawmakers spent two weeks back in their districts, where they heard from farmers and small business owners who are anxious about what the tariffs will do to their bottom lines. Several senators said Greer reassured them that there will be trade deals coming within weeks, which would help put their constituents at ease.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe feels like they\u2019re making good progress and that they will be announcing deals soon,\u201d said Sen. John Hoeven<\/a> (R-N.D.). \u201cAnd of course, that\u2019s going to be very helpful if they do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democrats are expected to force a vote later this week on a resolution to disapprove of Trump\u2019s use of emergency powers to impose tariffs between 10 and 50 percent on nearly every country in the world. While Trump paused the higher tariff rates less than 24 hours after they went into effect, he\u2019s left in place a global 10 percent tariff as well as a 145 percent tariff on China.<\/p>\n

Senate Majority Leader John Thune<\/a> warned Republicans during the lunch against helping the Democrats pass the resolution, just weeks after four GOP senators crossed the aisle to pass a resolution disapproving of Trump\u2019s tariffs on Canada.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a messaging vote for the Democrats. And it’s important to \u2014 especially now with the administration on the cusp of getting some deals on trade with other countries \u2014 that our folks hang together, give them the space to do that,\u201d Thune said of his message to his conference in a brief post-lunch interview.<\/p>\n

The majority leader also launched a staunch defense of Trump\u2019s trade strategy in the face of poor polling and economic turmoil over it, insisting the president\u2019s \u201cpolicy decisions are the right ones.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some Republicans remain uneasy about the tariffs, as they\u2019ve watched Trump\u2019s favorability ratings and consumer sentiment dip to the same level as the Covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

“There were a lot of questions,” said Sen. John Kennedy<\/a> (R-La.), who said he didn\u2019t want to use the word \u201cconcerns\u201d because it would be taken out of context. Kennedy said he expected to hear about a deal in the next few weeks \u2014 and wasn\u2019t expecting the administration to announce all of its deals at once.<\/p>\n

That reassured Sen. Kevin Cramer<\/a> (R-N.D.), who said senators advised Greer to roll out deals as they happen, not to wait for when the 90-day pause ends July 9.<\/p>\n

“Roll them out as they come along, don\u2019t try to, you know, save them all up for the Fourth of July,\u201d Cramer said. \u201cBecause people are anxious about it. They want to see the results.”<\/p>\n

While back in his district over the past two weeks, Hoeven said, he learned his constituents are largely supportive of Trump\u2019s goal with the tariffs \u2014 specifically lowering tariff barriers to open up new markets for U.S. exports. But he said they are nervous about the disruptions that are happening in the short term, particularly as farmers could potentially lose market share and small businesses are feeling forced to put decisions on hold.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of them are maybe delaying decisions, and that\u2019s why we want to keep this moving,\u201d Hoeven said. \u201cBecause that delay can have a negative impact on the economy. And that\u2019s why the things we\u2019ve been talking about, getting some announcements out on some of these deals sooner versus later, is going to be helpful.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Donald Trump\u2019s top trade adviser attempted to soothe Senate Republicans alarmed by the president\u2019s aggressive trade policies ahead of a potential vote to reject the executive branch\u2019s sweeping power to enact tariffs. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer attended the Senate GOP lunch on Capitol Hill on Tuesday after lawmakers spent two weeks back in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8650\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}