Some of the biggest cheerleaders of Donald Trump’s trade crackdown happen to be the very Democratic senators his party is gunning to defeat in November.

As Republicans howl that new tariffs could cause an economic meltdown, a handful of Rust Belt Democrats are giving the president a rare serving of praise. His stance could give the trio — Sens. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, all top GOP targets — a chance to tout their bipartisan credentials and defend their home-state metals industries all at once.


“I’m happy to see action being taken,” Casey said in an interview, acknowledging that his alignment with Trump “doesn’t happen that often.”

The remarks from Casey, echoed by Brown and Manchin, highlight one of the rare instances since Trump took office in which traditional partisan allegiances have been upended. Republicans and business groups are pleading with Trump to step back from the ledge and warning that his tariffs plan — 25 percent on imported steel and 10 percent on aluminum — could wipe out the benefits of the GOP’s tax cuts, and then some. The policy “could metastasize into a larger trade war,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Tuesday.

Sign up for Morning Trade A speed read on global trade news — weekday mornings, in your inbox. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Many Democrats agree. But some of the ones siding with the president are among the most politically vulnerable in the chamber.

"I wanted him to be aggressive and he was aggressive," Brown told reporters this week. Brown said he "maybe would have chosen one of the other" alternatives Trump's Commerce Department proposed to crack down on cheap steel and aluminum imports. "But I have urged him to move on this, and I did it publicly, and I’m glad he has moved on this."

Under other circumstances, the president might have counted on even broader support for his combative trade strategy from Democrats in states where turnout from blue-collar manufacturing workers helped him win the White House.

But the rushed, polarizing rollout of Trump's effort has left other electorally endangered Democrats from manufacturing states holding off or raising questions about the broader economic impact of the planned tariffs, which some of the president’s own aides are lobbying him to scrap.

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) called for a stronger focus on Chinese dumping of products onto the U.S. market, adding that the Trump administration “need[s] a more thoughtful, targeted approach to what they’re doing.”

Another Rust Belt Democrat facing a tough reelection race, Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, praised the "Buy American" provisions she has repeatedly called for votes on as an alternative approach to Trump’s plans.

“I’m not opposed to tariffs but I think they have to be very targeted,” Baldwin said in an interview. “And so I think Canada, for example, should be exempt.”

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Tuesday that Mexico and Canada likely would be exempt from the tariffs when Trump formally rolls them out later this week. But the absence of a formal release scrambled the politics of the issue for Democrats and Republicans alike, with leaders in both parties urging the president to take a different tack.

“There is a lot of concern among Republican senators that this could sort of metastasize into a larger trade war, and many of our members are discussing with the administration just how broad, how sweeping this might be,” McConnell told reporters Tuesday. He warned against tariffs "interfering with what appears to be an economy that's taking off in every respect."

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who has pushed Trump to make good on campaign-trail promises to rein in what both men have slammed as improper Chinese trade practices, echoed Stabenow in calling for the White House to focus its energies more on Beijing.

"They are our No. 1 trade problem," Schumer told reporters on Tuesday. "Not Canada, not Europe."

Other red-state Democrats on the GOP's November target list had their own warnings for Trump.

"I’m very worried about how it seems that little thought has been put into the potential retaliation to agriculture, which would be brutal in my state," Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill said in a brief interview.

Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), who joined most Republicans in voting to advance a contentious free-trade bill in 2015, described the plan as "folly."

"I think it's going to have dramatic and long-term ramifications for economic growth in our country and I hope that the president reconsiders," she told reporters.

Even Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.), whose home state has led the United States in steel production for more than four decades, stopped short of a full-throated endorsement of Trump's plan. Donnelly, who hailed the administration's decision to start the national security inquiry that led to the tariff plan, "looks forward to reviewing President Trump’s trade measures" once they are released, according to his office.

But other red-state Democrats said Trump's plan would be a boon for metalworkers in their home states who've been decrying unfair foreign competition for years.

Manchin described the issue as "one of the many" things he and Trump agree on, adding that the tariffs push is “a chance to look at all these agreements we have, what they’ve done to our country and find out a way to correct it."

Casey noted that "it remains to be seen how broad they go and what the exemptions are, but I want to make sure steelmakers in our state and other states have some relief they haven’t had in a long time."

Brown told reporters that "if we allow the Chinese, especially, to continue to undermine trade rules, then they work their way up the supply chain."

"So I think you draw the line, and you enforce the rules, and the laws are clear — and it’s what you ought to be doing."

Burgess Everett contributed to this report.