GOP lawmakers exhale deeply after Trump backtracks on trade war

Republican senators breathed out a sigh of relief when they found out at a lunch meeting Wednesday that President Trump announced he would drop tariffs on most foreign trading partners for 90 days, sending the stock market shooting up after a week of turmoil and steep losses.

Many of them were hearing a rising chorus of complaints from farmers, small-business owners and other constituents while also watching their retirement accounts sink in value along with those of millions of other Americans.

“Heard the stock market shot up like a rocket!” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), emerging from the GOP lunch meeting.

“It seems pretty clear that the Treasury secretary has won the argument that this ought to be about negotiating and not about generating revenue,” he said, referring to the tug-of-war between Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and White House trade adviser Peter Navarro over the driving aim of Trump’s sweeping tariffs.

While Bessent said he was open to negotiation, Navarro declared “this is not a negotiation” in a Financial Times op-ed.

Cornyn said Trump’s announcement says “for the next 90 days, there will be stability, and I think that’s what a lot of people are looking for.

He said even members of Congress aren’t immune from the extreme market turmoil that drained away as much as 20 percent of the value of retirement accounts in a matter of days.

“I think most members of Congress have at least mutual funds,” Cornyn said. “I don’t own individual stocks, but I do have like an IRA and things like that. I think everybody can identify with that going up.

“Jubilation is too strong a word, but it was positive,” he said of the reaction in the Senate Mansfield Room, where GOP senators gathered for a lunchtime meeting.

GOP lawmakers were growing panicked over the plunging financial markets and the proliferating predictions that the United States was likely headed toward a recession.

While Republicans publicly said they were willing to let Trump’s strategy of pressuring trading partners play out, many felt increasingly uncomfortable about where the economy was headed amid plunging prices for stocks, bonds and commodities.  

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) asked U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer during a Senate Finance Committee hearing Tuesday: “Whose throat do I get to choke if this proves to be wrong?”

Before Trump made his announcement, Tillis warned that the nation faced a trade war on “all fronts” and said the administration needed to have a detailed plan on what steps to take next.

“We’ve put policy out there that really opens up all fronts, even among some of our friends and somebody, I presume, has [thought] that through. We’ll know if that’s the case in the coming weeks,” he said.

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) warned in an MSNBC interview Wednesday morning that “with tariffs, an eye for an eye just leaves both people blind,” arguing the import taxes interfere with people’s “freedom to exchange goods and services.”

After Trump announced at midday he would drop tariffs to 10 percent for most countries for the next 90 days, Kennedy said he made the right move.

“I think the president made the right decision,” he said, adding that he felt relieved.

“On this issue, he’s been a bulldog. And the bulldog caught the car. I did not know what he would do with the car,” Kennedy said.

Republican lawmakers on Wednesday praised Trump’s 90-day pause on the steepest tariffs — such as a 20 percent tariff on the European Union, a 32 percent tariff on Taiwan, and a 46 percent tariff on Vietnam — but they acknowledged the global trade drama is still far from over.

Cornyn said Trump’s latest action gives the global economy a chance to stabilize and policymakers a chance to take a “deep breath.”

He said the pause “provides people a sense of, ‘OK, we can all take a deep breath, nothing’s likely to change in the next 90 days.’”

A Republican senator who attended Wednesday’s lunch said many Republican colleagues were feeling highly anxious Trump would dig in and cause long-lasting economic damage.

“People are nervous,” said the senator, who requested anonymity to discuss private conversations with colleagues and constituents. “Tariffs make you nervous.”

The senator praised Bessent for trying to calm the nation about the underlying strength of the economy.

“Hopefully that message is going to get across so we don’t have this panic,” the senator said.

A second Republican senator who requested anonymity said many Republican senators don’t support Trump’s sweeping tariff threats, even though most of them aren’t willing to speak out publicly.

“My impression from the senators I’ve had conversations with is there’s a lot less support for tariffs than what’s Trump program is and a lot of concern about what the consequences are,” the lawmaker said.

A growing number of GOP lawmakers had started to express their opposition to Trump’s trade policies publicly after the stock market plunged more than 10 percent in the two days after the president announced tariffs on more than 180 countries and territories.

Seven Republican senators signed onto a bill co-sponsored by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) to rein in Trump’s trade authority by requiring that new tariffs and tariff increases expire after 60 days unless Congress passes a resolution of approval. The co-signers included Republican Sens. Jerry Moran (Kan.), Todd Young (Ind.), Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and Tillis.

And four Republicans — Collins, Murkowski, McConnell and Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) — voted last week for a resolution to undo Trump’s 25 percent tariff on Canada.

Paul on Wednesday said he would co-sponsor another resolution with Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, to undo Trump’s tariffs on more than 80 countries.

Paul and Wyden plan to bring the resolution, which is eligible for “privileged” floor consideration, up for a Senate vote after the two-week Easter recess.

Paul, who has loudly criticized Trump’s tariff policies, took a shot at Navarro, the president’s senior trade adviser, for arguing that tariffs will lead to a new era of economic prosperity.

“He believes in protectionism and that trade is bad. He’s wrong. He’s a walking economic fallacy,” Paul said.