The Daily BS • Bo Snerdley Cuts Through It!
The Daily BS • Bo Snerdley Cuts Through It!

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Democrats spent years fighting Trump’s tariffs — then voted to hand him a 500% tariff cannon

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BS BULLETIN:

  • Senate Democrats have spent years hammering Trump over his aggressive use of tariffs.
  • Then nearly the entire Democratic caucus voted for a Russia sanctions package giving Trump explicit new tariff powers.
  • The bill allows tariffs of up to 100% on major buyers of Russian energy — and up to 500% on Russian imports.

Well, this is awkward.

Democrats have spent years warning America about Donald Trump and tariffs.

They’re taxes. They’re inflationary. They’re reckless. They’re dangerous. Trump can’t be trusted with them.

Then Senate Democrats overwhelmingly voted to give him some more. The Senate passed the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act earlier this month in a whopping 86-11 vote.

The goal is straightforward: squeeze Vladimir Putin’s war machine by going after Russia and the countries still pumping billions of dollars into it by purchasing Russian oil and gas.

But tucked inside that bipartisan package is something Democrats have spent much of Trump’s second term fighting: New tariff authority for President Trump.

And we’re not talking about pocket change.

The legislation would authorize tariffs of up to 500% on Russian-origin goods and allow Trump to impose tariffs of up to 100% on goods from the largest purchasers of Russian oil and natural gas.

Think China. Think India. The idea is to make buying Putin’s energy painfully expensive.

There’s just one little political problem. The guy who gets to wield the weapon is Donald J. Trump.

Sen. Ron Wyden saw the problem coming.

“It gives Donald Trump massive new tariff authority that he can use to threaten our trading partners and raise prices on the American people,” the Oregon Democrat warned on the Senate floor.

Wyden even teamed up with Republican Sen. Rand Paul on an amendment to strip the tariff provisions out of the legislation.

It failed. Only nine Democrats ultimately opposed the package, according to Fox News. Sen. Elizabeth Warren was one of them.

Trump “has shown what he will do with broad tariff authority,” Warren warned before the final vote. “Heck, he’s shown what he’ll do even if he doesn’t have authority.”

But the overwhelming majority of her Democratic colleagues voted yes anyway. Now, with Trump’s latest tariff war against Canada reigniting the national fight over his favorite economic weapon, some Democrats are explaining why this time is different.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who worked with the late Sen. Lindsey Graham on the Russia sanctions legislation, stressed that Trump’s new authority isn’t unlimited. The bill restricts the secondary tariffs to the biggest purchasers of Russian energy and countries helping Russia evade sanctions.

“If Donald Trump wants to break this law, he will be restrained by the courts, just as when he broke the law on tariffs previously,” Blumenthal told Fox News Digital. “We can’t do any more than be explicit in limiting his authority.”

Sen. Raphael Warnock had similar concerns. Warnock told Fox he sought assurances from U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer that the tariffs would be confined to the Kremlin’s biggest energy trading partners.

“It was important to hold Putin accountable,” Warnock said. But, he added, “it was important to put some guardrails on this president.”

There’s the dilemma.

Democrats wanted a monster economic weapon to use against Putin. They just weren’t thrilled about whose finger would be on the trigger.

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