The House was set to vote Wednesday on a measure disapproving of President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canada a day after a procedural vote on a rule that would have continued to block challenges to the administration’s levies failed.
Three Republican lawmakers, Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Kevin Kiley of California and Don Bacon of Nebraska, joined Democrats to defeat a key procedural measure 217-214 on Tuesday, in a blow to House Speaker Mike Johnson. That opened the door for Democrats to force a vote on a resolution disapproving of the president’s 25 percent duties on Canadian goods, Politico reported.
A tariff resolution introduced by Rep. Gregory Meeks, a New York Democrat, was set to be voted on Wednesday, CNBC said.
“Republicans now face a clear choice: go on the record and join Democrats in ending these cost-raising tariffs, or keep forcing American families to pay for them,” Meeks, the senior Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a post on X.
A vote on Trump’s tariffs will force House Republicans to choose between loyalty to the president and striking down economic policy that many in the GOP conference do not like, CNBC noted. Johnson can afford to lose only one Republican vote if all Democrats are present and vote in favor of the resolution.
That said, the vote would likely remain largely symbolic. Even if the Senate were to also pass the resolution, it would be vetoed by the president and unable to muster the two-thirds majority required in both houses for an override.