Wall Street Journal sides with Murkowski on Trump tariff tantrums

“Maybe Congress isn’t entirely comatose,” the right-wing Wall Street Journal editors say in an editorial about Senate votes against the so-called emergency that Donald Trump has claimed allows him to slap tariffs on anything that strikes his fancy.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski joined with four other Republicans to challenge the tariff madness against Brazil. Murkowski and three others voted against the ridiculous Trump tariffs on Canada. Murkowski and three other GOP senators voted to stop the tariff spree entirely.

And where is Sen. Dan Sullivan on this? Camped out in the comatose compound.

Sullivan, who has a 100 percent record of voting with Trump, doesn’t have the political courage to challenge anything that Trump does.

On the big issues that really matter, Sullivan is incapable of independent thought.

This is as transparent as the phony photo he has used on a campaign mailer that has Trump inserted against an Alaska mountain backdrop, with the image of Trump larger than that of Sullivan. (Liz Ruskin noted this in her latest column.)

Unlike the junior senator, Murkowski is capable of independent thought on some of the big issues that really matter.

This tariff nonsense is one of them.

“For too long, Congress has taken a backseat as presidents of both parties have slowly seized more and more power,” Murkowski said in a press release. “This series of votes isn’t just about registering the Senate’s disapproval of the President’s emergency declaration on tariffs—it’s about Congress reasserting our authority as a co-equal branch of government with defined powers and responsibilities.”

Here is the rest of the Journal editorial:

The Senate offered a welcome demonstration of independent thought late Tuesday with a 52-48 vote to terminate President Trump’s 50% tariff on goods from Brazil.

Five Republicans—Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Thom Tillis (North Carolina), Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul (Kentucky)—voted with Democrats. The measure would end the national emergency declaration that Mr. Trump cited to justify his Brazil tariffs under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).

The President has used that law to impose tariffs willy-nilly, claiming the U.S. trade deficit, fentanyl trafficking, or anything else he can conjure is a “national emergency.” In July Mr. Trump raised his 10% baseline tariff to 50% on Brazil as retaliation for the leftwing government’s prosecution of former center-right president Jair Bolsonaro for allegedly plotting a coup to overturn the 2022 election.

“Recently, members of the Government of Brazil have taken unprecedented actions that harm and are a threat to the economy of the United States, conflict with and threaten the policy of the United States to promote free speech and free and fair elections at home and abroad, and violate fundamental human rights,” Mr. Trump’s executive order said.

The lawfare against Mr. Bolsonaro is unfair, but a U.S. national emergency? The tariffs mainly punish American consumers and businesses that are having to pay higher prices for coffee, bananas, beef and more. “Emergencies are like war, famine, tornado,” Mr. Paul said. The Trump tariffs are “an abuse of the emergency power. And it’s Congress abdicating their traditional role in taxes.”

He’s right on all counts, and it’s good to see some members of Congress push back against Mr. Trump’s usurpation of their constitutional power over trade and taxes. Republicans denounced Joe Biden for using the national emergency excuse to forgive student loans, but most have shrugged at Mr. Trump’s border taxes because they don’t want to draw his pique.

But the costs of tariffs and the uncertainty of Mr. Trump’s trade policy are causing real problems for industries and communities across the country. Rising coffee prices are an acute pain point for consumers and small shop owners. The Supreme Court next week will hear a challenge to Mr. Trump’s use of IEEPA. If the Justices block his tariffs, Mr. Trump may prod Congress to give him the same authority. The Senate vote is a welcome signal that he won’t get it.

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