Republican senators are at their breaking point with Donald Trump’s protectionist trade blitz.

Not a party meeting goes by these days at which multiple Republicans don’t vent that the president isn’t listening to them — and plot how to fight back.


“I’d like to kill ’em,” groused Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), a close Trump ally, referring to the administration’s expanding list of tariffs.

The mounting frustration with the Republican president is a warning sign for the party amid what’s been a surprisingly favorable stretch. Trump appears, at least for now, to have weathered the internal GOP backlash against his family separation policy. He has a new Supreme Court vacancy to fill, and he ended last week celebrating the “economic miracle” he said his tax cuts created.

But Republican senators say they can’t get the president to comprehend that his tariffs offensive could upend all of that progress in short order. Commodity prices in the heartland are sagging, U.S. allies are retaliating with tariffs of their own — and GOP leaders are fretting that the booming economy is about to go into a pre-midterms nosedive.

“Individual senators have met with the president, including me. The Ag committee met with him, the Finance Committee met with him. And there’s nobody for this,” said Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), the Agriculture Committee chairman. Trump is “a protectionist who has his policy wrapped around the rear axle of a pickup. And it’s hard to get out.”

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GOP senators say Trump has heard them out at White House meetings and in phone calls. But he has plowed ahead, anyway: First Trump imposed tariffs on washing machines and solar panels, then slapped tariffs on steel and aluminum imports for Mexico, Europe and Canada, and now is moving toward new levies on foreign cars. The tit-for-tat is accelerating: Tariffs against China take effect this week, and Canada announced retaliatory tariffs on Friday.

After a fruitless diplomacy campaign, some in the party are weighing confrontation. Most notably, Hatch is pushing legislation in his Finance Committee to rein in Trump. The effort seems to have more support from GOP leaders than legislation that would place new checks on Trump’s power to impose tariffs, which Roberts dubbed the “hand-grenade” option.

Hatch “is pretty fired up,” said Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), the No. 3 GOP leader. And “there’s definitely a lot of sentiment among members of the Finance Committee that the administration’s tariff positions are going to step on ... the economic gains that we’ve made.”

Republican senators have privately circulated a list of five tweaks that could be made to the “232” law that governs national security tariffs, according to people familiar with the matter. A number of senators believe that Trump has abused that authority with the steel and aluminum tariffs, and they are discussing whether to change the definition of national security to restrict Trump’s actions.

But the action isn’t just in the finance panel, which could takes weeks, if not months, to write and pass a bill that balances the Republicans' support for Trump with their opposition to his trade policies. GOP Sens. Bob Corker of Tennessee and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania are now trying to attach their own tariff proposal — which would allow Congress to vote up or down on any tariff with a national security rationale — to almost anything that moves across the Senate floor.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) met privately with Corker and Toomey last week to discuss a strategy for how to get them a vote on their plan as part of the farm bill debate. But when Senate Republicans finally agreed to let them have their roll call on the Senate floor, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) blocked them in a surprising defense of a president from the opposing party.

But Corker and Toomey said they‘re going to keep at it. “We’re not going to abandon our efforts,” the Pennsylvanian vowed.

Corker and Toomey’s tactics annoyed a number of Republican senators who wanted to protect the farm bill from being tarnished with an amendment that might make Trump veto the entire bill. The duo tried to do the same on a defense bill earlier in June, leading Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) to snap at the retiring Corker in a party lunch: “You don’t care about the Republican Party because you're leaving."

But those tensions haven’t abated. Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) has blocked confirmation of Republican judges, hoping to force a vote on the Corker-Toomey plan. Among those thwarted is Georgia Circuit Court nominee Britt Grant, who is on Trump’s list of potential Supreme Court nominees.

At a party lunch late last month, the typically reserved Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) laced into Flake for blocking a judge from his home state, according to two people familiar with the encounter. He was backed up by McConnell, Isakson recalled.

The Senate leader told the conference “that we were doing so good on judges that it would be a shame to begin breaking down the process. And he directed the remarks right at Jeff,” Isakson said.

The Supreme Court vacancy might offer a brief respite from the tensions. But the excitement over the high court will do little to relieve the pressure that rural Republicans are feeling back home as a result of the tariffs.

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) has held off endorsing legislation to restrict Trump’s autonomy on trade, preferring instead to write the president letters and lobby him privately.

But she said her state is hurting because of retaliatory tariffs aimed at agriculture industries. And Iowans are running out of patience.

“We want to support the president; my constituents want to support the president as well. But they can only keep that stiff upper lip before things collapse,” Ernst said. “We’re not quite at that point, but it’s rapidly approaching.”

Across the border in Wisconsin, things are equally dire after Harley-Davidson, a titan of American manufacturing, announced that Trump’s tariffs are driving its production overseas. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) has spoken to Harley-Davidson’s CEO about its plans and was told the move overseas is “reversible” — if Trump backs away in the coming weeks or is otherwise hamstrung by Congress.

“I’m crossing my fingers hoping that will happen. I don’t see it happening anytime soon. Probably not soon enough for Harley to say: Now we have a stable system,” Johnson said. “Nobody wins a trade war.”

Republican lawmakers are struggling to reconcile their staunch belief in free trade with their reluctance to challenge and potentially weaken a Republican president. McConnell’s statements attacking the tariffs have given Republicans some cover to work on taking on the president and appeared to jump-start the Finance Committee's work on tariff policy.

But there are some Trump allies who may never vote to do anything that could be perceived as undercutting Trump.

“Everything the White House does, they’re in it every day,” said Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.), a close Trump ally who nonetheless opposes tariffs. “For me as a legislator here in the Senate to second guess? I am kind of reluctant to do that.”