Chuck Schumer calls Senate’s tie vote against Donald Trump’s tariffs a ‘win’

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer defended his decision to agree to hold a vote on a resolution overturning President Trump’s emergency declaration justifying sweeping tariffs when he knew one of his senators would miss the vote.

The vote to nullify the underpinning of Mr. Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff plan, which imposed a 10% tariff on all imports and threatened heftier levies on dozens of trading partners, was deadlocked at 49-49, thanks to the absences of Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse, Rhode Island Democrat, and Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican.

Mr. Whitehouse and Mr. McConnell were both supporters of the resolution, so had either been present for the vote, it would have succeeded. It would have been only a symbolic victory, however, since House Republicans won’t take up the measure and Mr. Trump threatened to veto it.

Democratic leaders knew Mr. Whitehouse, who was returning from an environmental conference in South Korea, would miss the vote if it was held on Wednesday but agreed to schedule it for that day anyway.

Mr. Schumer said he wanted to have the vote that day to coincide with other Democratic messaging events criticizing Mr. Trump’s record in the first 100 days of his second term.

“It was a win-win either way,” the New York Democrat said. “If we won the vote, it was a good win, like we won the Canada vote. But we knew if we lost, every single Republican, including those up for election, was the single vote that kept tariffs, kept these onerous tariffs on the backs of the American people. And so Republicans own it.”

Mr. Schumer put out a statement immediately after the vote to that effect: “Senate Republicans tonight voted to keep the Trump tariff-tax in place. They own the Trump tariffs and higher costs on America’s middle-class families.”

The unsuccessful vote lets Democrats blame Republicans for failing to stop Mr. Trump’s tariffs. 

And they had already secured a win against Trump last month when four Republicans joined them in voting 51-48 to terminate the emergency justification the president used to impose tariffs on Canadian imports. 

Three of those Republicans — Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who led the effort with Democrats, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — voted for the resolution to nullify the president’s across-the-board tariffs. 

The fourth, Mr. McConnell, would have supported it had he not missed the vote.

“The senator has been consistent in opposing tariffs and that a trade war is not in the best interest of American households and businesses,” McConnell spokesman David Popp said. 

Resolutions terminating national emergencies are privileged in Congress, which means any member can force a vote, as Mr. Paul and Democrats did on two of the justifications that Mr. Trump used for his tariffs. But House GOP leaders used a procedural gimmick to prevent similar action in the lower chamber through September.

Mr. Schumer said senators could target other emergency declarations but didn’t elaborate.