Democratic Wins Would Shift Congress's Trade Debate but Fall Short of Rolling Back Trump's Tariffs, Reuters Reports
If Democrats win control of Congress on Tuesday, Trump's trade agenda faces oversight hearings and symbolic tariff rollback votes — but his veto power and executive authority would leave the tariffs themselves largely intact, trade experts and congressional aides told Reuters.
President Donald Trump's trade agenda will face a new source of friction if Democrats win control of Congress on Tuesday, with a cascade of oversight hearings and symbolic tariff rollback votes likely next year, but Trump will remain undeterred in his zeal for more tariff actions, trade experts and congressional aides told Reuters in a Nov. 1 analysis.
Democrats are eager to pass legislation to negate many of Trump's tariffs and the more archaic statutes backing them, but any gains by the party will run into the reality of Trump's veto power, Reuters reported. Democrats need a net gain of four seats in both the House and the Senate to overturn Republicans' narrow 218-214 and 53-47 majorities; opinion polls favor Democrats to win the House, while the Senate remains too close to call, leaving Democrats far short of a veto-proof two-thirds majority.
If they win at least one chamber, Democrats could stage symbolic votes on long-sidelined trade bills such as Senator Chuck Schumer's "End Trump's Tariff Tax Act," which would scrap the statute backing the punitive tariffs on Canadian goods, Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, along with the statute used for Trump's temporary 10 percent global tariffs, Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, according to Reuters.
Gaining control of trade committee gavels would also give Democrats a platform for oversight hearings into the tariff exemption process, how tariffs are affecting small businesses, and how the administration is handling hundreds of billions of dollars in investment funds pledged by Japan, South Korea and other trading partners, Reuters reported. Greta Peisch, a former general counsel at the U.S. Trade Representative's office, told Reuters that even without the votes to reform trade authorities right away, the effort could form the basis of a proposal for the presidential elections.
