[CTC] Democrats widely blast Trump’s tariffs, but not necessarily tariffs themselves.

[Arthur Stamoulis]

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/04/13/us/trump-news#democrats-trump-tariffs-policy

*Democrats widely blast Trump’s tariffs, but not necessarily tariffs
themselves.  *

April 13, 2025, 12:45 p.m. ETApril 13, 2025

Maya C. Miller <https://www.nytimes.com/by/maya-c-miller>
Congressional reporter

As Democrats push back against the policies of the second Trump
administration, they are struggling to convey a clear stance on tariffs,
with many walking a political tightrope amid the rapid shifts in President
Trump’s trade agenda.

While most Democrats have criticized Mr. Trump’s on-again, off-again
approach as “chaotic” and “reckless,” they have displayed little consensus
about embracing tariffs themselves as a policy tool.

Their divisions were on display on Sunday morning, as Democratic lawmakers
were grilled by talk show hosts about whether their party was taking the
right approach by objecting to Mr. Trump’s tariffs while embracing tariffs
in principle as a policy tool.

When pressed by NBC’s Kristen Welker, Senator Cory Booker, Democrat of New
Jersey, denounced Mr. Trump’s trade strategy but declined to weigh in on
whether he thought others in his party were taking the right approach by
offering a more nuanced criticism. Ms. Welker pointed out that former
President Joseph R. Biden Jr. had maintained and even expanded some of the
tariffs that Mr. Trump enacted in his first term, a move that some
progressive Democrats had applauded at the time.

“I just want to, for myself, tell you a full-throated, unequivocal
condemnation of the Trump tariffs,” Mr. Booker said, blaming the trade
barriers for roiling the economy and tanking Americans’ savings. “It is all
just wrong. It should be condemned.”

A few Democrats have even aligned themselves with Mr. Trump’s tariffs.
Representative Jared Golden of Maine, a Democrat who has consistently won
re-election in a Trump-won district, has embraced a 10 percent blanket
tariff on imports and twice introduced a bill that would codify such levies.

And last week Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan broke from others in her
party
<https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/09/us/politics/gretchen-whitmer-speech-tariffs.html>
 by saying she understood the “motivation” behind Mr. Trump’s tariffs and
agreed with him that “we do need to make more stuff in America.”

When asked by CNN’s Jake Tapper whether there was room for nuanced
conversation or if comments like Ms. Whitmer’s were “a mistake,” Senator
Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, sidestepped the question.
Instead, she said it was a mistake for Congress to allow Mr. Trump to
continue using the “red light, green light” strategy of enacting then
revoking tariffs.

“Tariffs can be an important tool in the toolbox when used in targeted
ways. But right now, what we’ve got is chaos and corruption,” Ms. Warren
said. “Congress has a job right now, and that is to step up and take this
authority away from Donald Trump.”

While party leaders insist that Democrats are unified, their muddled
opposition has angered some in the Democratic base. House Democrats came
under fire this month after the caucus posted a video on X
<https://x.com/HouseDemocrats/status/1908218153404117109> in which
Representative Chris Deluzio of Pennsylvania defended tariffs as part of a
larger strategy to combat “a wrong-for-decades consensus in Washington on
free trade.”

“We as Democrats must speak out forcefully against Trump’s weaponization of
tariffs to wreak havoc on the American economy,” wrote Representative
Ritchie Torres, Democrat of New York, in response to the video
<https://x.com/RitchieTorres/status/1908237518115348664>. “Muddled
milquetoast messaging only emboldens Trump’s madness.”

For now, House leadership appears to have settled on bashing Mr. Trump’s
tariff strategy while leaving the door open to using such tools in a more
strategic way in the future.

When asked last week whether Democrats, if they were in control of the
House, would repeal Mr. Trump’s tariffs completely, the minority leader,
Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, said that his party would use
“every legislative tool available” to protect American consumers and
workers from “economic harm.”

“Tariffs, when properly utilized, have a role to play in trying to make
sure that you have a competitive environment for our workers and our
businesses,” Mr. Jeffries said. “That’s not what’s going on right now. This
is a reckless economic sledgehammer that Donald Trump and compliant
Republicans in the Congress are taking to the economy, and the American
people are being hurt enough.”
Arthur Stamoulis
Citizens Trade Campaign
(202) 494-8826
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