Four Republicans joined Democrats in the U.S. Senate to pass a resolution on Wednesday that seeks to end the fentanyl emergency justification used by President Donald Trump to impose tariffs on Canada, breaking with their party to protest the growing trade war with America’s closest ally.
Sens. Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul of Kentucky, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine joined all 45 Democratic and independent senators in supporting the resolution, which passed 51-48 but will likely remain symbolic.
The vote came shortly after Trump announced his so-called “reciprocal” tariff plan that seeks to reorient global trade, an action the U.S. president has called “Liberation Day.”
The new policy didn’t include Canada, but kept in place sweeping 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian goods along with exemptions set to expire on Wednesday. Trump had used emergency powers to justify the tariffs in response to what he claims is a failure to stop the flow of fentanyl into the U.S.
Yet senators who voted for the measure underscored the fact that Canada is not a top source of fentanyl in the U.S. and that tariffs on Canadian goods will lead to higher prices and economic costs for Americans.
“No one in this chamber … would dispute that fentanyl is a massive problem, and indeed an emergency,” Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, who introduced the resolution, said on the Senate floor Wednesday ahead of the vote.
“But … calling it a Canadian emergency and putting the same tariffs on Canadian products as we put on Mexican (products) is an invented emergency, not a real emergency.”
The U.S. Intelligence Community’s Annual Threat Assessment report, released last week, does not mention Canada in its section on illicit drugs and fentanyl — an omission Kaine repeatedly highlighted.
A small fraction of the fentanyl that comes into the U.S. enters from Canada. U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized just under 20 kilograms of fentanyl at the northern border during the 2024 fiscal year, and authorities have seized about half a kilogram since January, according to federal data.
Meanwhile, at the southern border, authorities seized over 9,500 kilograms last year.
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Kaine said further study of the statistics suggests last year’s seizures may also be an overcount, and included fentanyl encountered in northern U.S. communities like Spokane, Wash., did not cross the border from Canada, but rather originated from Mexico.
Kaine’s resolution seeks to end Trump’s use of the International Economic Emergency Powers Act, also called IEEPA, to declare an emergency over fentanyl trafficking in order to hit Canada with tariffs.
Most fentanyl and its precursors originate from China and Mexico, which Kaine said is why he wasn’t seeking to end Trump’s tariffs on Mexican goods that were also imposed under the emergency declaration.
Since Trump first threatened those tariffs in November, Canada has made new investments in border security and intelligence and appointed a fentanyl czar to oversee its various strategies to combat the deadly opioid.
Trump last week said Canada and Mexico had “stepped it up,” and on Tuesday said, “we are making progress” on combating fentanyl in a social media post urging Republicans to vote against Kaine’s measure.
Just before 1 a.m. eastern time Wednesday, Trump called out McConnell, Paul, Murkowski and Collins by name and urged them to “get on the Republican bandwagon, for a change.”
He claimed Democrats were seeking “to not penalize Canada for the sale, into our Country, of large amounts of Fentanyl, by Tariffing the value of this horrible and deadly drug in order to make it more costly to distribute and buy.”
It wasn’t clear what the president meant when he said he would impose tariffs on fentanyl coming from Canada. Trafficked fentanyl is not being sold legally when it crosses a border, meaning there’s no mechanism like a border guard enforcing duties or an import fee under the legal processes for imports, which is how tariffs are enforced and collected.
Republicans rail against trade protectionism, economic impacts
Kaine and other Democrats made the case that tariffs on Canada would ripple through the economy, making it more expensive to build homes and military ships and buy groceries.
That argument was echoed by Republicans who supported the measure.
“The tariffs on Canada would be detrimental to many Maine families and our local economies,” Collins said Wednesday.
Paul, who has long supported free trade, warned Trump’s tariffs would do particular damage to the North American auto sector, which is also facing separate duties set to begin Thursday on all foreign vehicle imports.
“Do you love the idea of tariffs, is it such a great word, to pay $10,000 more for a car?” he asked.
He noted that until recently, Republicans have historically shared his opposition to tariffs and should not support policies that will hurt several other sectors where Canada is a top trading partner.
“The former and never-were conservatives who try to sell tariffs as anything but a tax cannot fool the American people, who know that their purchasing power will be weakened with every new protectionist measure unilaterally imposed by the White House,” he said.
Supporters of the measure also said they were defending Congress’ equal powers in government to set tariffs and other taxes, and that Trump’s emergency measures were overriding lawmakers’ authority.
By contrast, Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, a top Republican in the Senate, praised Trump’s tariffs for forcing Canada to take action on border security and said the U.S. faces “unique threats” from the northern border.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection data shows monthly encounters at the Canada-U.S. border fell below 500 in February, the lowest number since September 2022.
Other Republican senators spoke about the urgent need to stop the scourge of fentanyl, which has become a top cause of overdose deaths in the U.S. with tens of thousands of Americans killed annually. Only some, however, made the case for tariffs on Canada as a necessary tool to force the country to help that effort.
They accused Democrats of wanting to end the fentanyl emergency declaration altogether, which they said would weaken the administration and law enforcement efforts to end the opioid crisis.
New rules passed by the House last month make it unlikely that the Senate measure will be taken up by the chamber and sent to Trump, who said Wednesday he would reject it as well.
He said on social media the resolution “is not going anywhere because the House will never approve it and I, as your President, will never sign it.”
—With files from the Canadian Press
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