(Bloomberg) -- Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told administration officials that President Donald Trump should hold off on imposing tariffs on Mexico until he can personally make his argument to Republicans in Congress, according to people briefed on the conversation.
McConnell has also warned the White House that Trump can’t take GOP support for granted, the people said.
Members of Congress have already left Washington for the week, so any meeting with the president would probably happen next week. The first round of 5% tariffs on all Mexican imports is set to take effect Monday.
Some administration officials attended the Senate Republican lunch on Tuesday to explain Trump’s tariff plan, which was first announced last week. The session went poorly, the people said, asking not to be named to discuss the private meeting.
One person in the room described it as a tense, with Texas Senator Ted Cruz asking White House representatives to take back a message that the tariffs have almost no support. The person said there’s frustration among Senate Republicans that the president doesn’t understand how tariffs work and that they will hurt American consumers and businesses.
“There’s a point where tariff fatigue sets in,” said Senator Mike Braun, an Indiana Republican and a close Trump ally. “I don’t know what might occur and I’ve really not heard anything whether there’s been any progress.”
The White House will have to decide by Friday whether it will use an existing national emergency declaration to support Trump’s authority to impose the tariffs or declare a new emergency on the U.S. southern border.
Trump originally declared a national emergency in February to give himself the authority to divert government money to begin building a border wall without approval of Congress.
The distinction is an important one, because it would determine how Congress responds. If the White House cites the February emergency as justification for the tariffs, that could limit the Republican rebellion because some GOP lawmakers back the original emergency that supports Trump’s border wall.
New Declaration
A new emergency declaration would put the tariffs on more solid footing, but it would be politically easier for Republicans to reject if the declaration isn’t tied to the wall that’s popular among some GOP voters.
McConnell also told the administration representatives he won’t initiate any legislative action to halt the tariffs until Senate Republicans can speak directly with the president, the people said. Trump is currently in Europe, following a state visit to the U.K.
Congress can cancel an emergency declaration with a resolution of disapproval, which would remove Trump’s authority to impose tariffs. Such a resolution would probably have enough Republican support to initially pass both the House and the Senate, but getting the two thirds majority needed to override a presidential veto would be much harder.
Both chambers adopted a resolution of disapproval to end Trump’s February declaration, but that effort died a month later when the House didn’t have enough votes to override Trump’s veto.
Most House Republicans are still likely to stick by Trump. While Senate Republicans have grumbled about Trump’s Mexico tariffs, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said such public division hurts the White House’s ability to cut a deal.
“At the end of the day we should support the president so we can get an agreement so we don’t have tariffs,” McCarthy said, holding on to hope that a deal with the Mexican government will convince Trump to not move forward with the plan.
Trump said last week the tariffs will begin with 5% on all Mexican imports and scale up each month to reach 25% in October unless Mexico takes sufficient action to keep Central Americans from traveling north to enter the U.S. illegally.
Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard met Thursday with Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to discuss U.S. demands.
Democrats who control the House of Representatives, meanwhile, say it’s up to Republicans to counter their president’s plan to use tariffs to force a sovereign country to change its immigration policy. Hakeem Jeffries, the New York representative who chairs the House Democratic Caucus, described the tariffs as a “man-made disaster” that could threaten economic growth.
“This tariff strategy lacks a strategy and simply is being driven by the whims of the person sitting at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue,” Jeffries said, describing the president as the occupant of the White House. “The tariff question is squarely going to shine a spotlight on whether the Republicans will choose principle over the president, or the president over principle.”
(Updates to add lawmaker comments beginning in the sixth paragraph.)