In a notable break from President Donald Trump’s signature trade policy, several House Republicans joined Democrats in passing a resolution to terminate the president’s national emergency at the northern border that triggered tariffs on Canada just over one year ago.

Cato Institute’s Scott Lincicome has provided the following statement:

The House vote is a welcome sanity check on President Trump’s costly tariffs and baseless declaration of a “national emergency” related to Canadian fentanyl. But the vote won’t stop the tariffs (on imports from Canada or anywhere else), and it won’t do anything to fix the broader problems with presidents’ abuse of US law governing national emergencies. There are now fifty active national emergencies, each one unlocking for the president vast and unchecked powers typically reserved to Congress. In this case, Canada is a close US ally and US free trade agreement partner (a Trump-signed trade agreement, no less), and the “emergency” is an obvious pretext to impose new taxes on American companies and consumers. That this wasn’t unanimous – and that the Canadian tariffs will almost certainly continue following a Trump veto – is an unfortunate and telling statement on US policy governing both tariffs and the “emergencies” that today permit the president to apply them.

Scott Lincicome is the vice president of general economics and Cato’s Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies.

To request an interview, please reach out to Cato PR via pr@​cato.​org.