In a striking show of bipartisanship, the U.S. Senate voted Tuesday to challenge President Donald Trump’s decision to impose tariffs on Brazil—an uncommon act of defiance against the administration’s hardline trade tactics.
The measure passed 52–48, with five Republican senators—Rand Paul of Kentucky, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and former GOP leader Mitch McConnell—joining Democrats to support it.
McConnell, a frequent critic of broad-based tariffs, issued a statement before the vote warning that such policies distort markets and drive up costs, wrote CNN. “Tariffs make both building and buying in America more expensive,” he said. “The economic harms of trade wars are not the exception to history, but the rule.”
Despite the Senate’s approval, the resolution is unlikely to move forward. House Republicans have implemented procedural changes blocking floor votes on similar challenges to presidential trade actions.
The measure aims to nullify an emergency declaration Trump used to justify the tariffs, citing alleged political persecution of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro—a close Trump ally—as a threat to U.S. interests.
Sen. Tim Kaine, a Democrat from Virginia, who led the effort, blasted the rationale as baseless. “The emergency, with respect to Brazil … is the Brazilian decision to prosecute Donald Trump’s friend. How is that an emergency?” Kaine asked on the Senate floor. He noted that the United States currently runs a trade surplus with Brazil.
Kaine added that his opposition was not only to these specific tariffs but to what he called an abuse of emergency powers. “I’m against tariffs generally, unless they’re used very specifically,” he said. “But I’m also against letting presidents just invent a reason to use emergency powers to do all kinds of things without coming to Congress.”
Trump’s executive order framing the move cited “politically motivated persecution, intimidation, harassment, censorship, and prosecution” by the Brazilian government, describing them as “serious human rights abuses that have undermined the rule of law.”
Kaine said additional Senate votes are expected later this week to address similar tariffs on Canada and broader global duties under Trump’s “liberation day” initiative. A previous resolution targeting Canadian tariffs passed the Senate but stalled in the House.
