With GOP Help, Senate Votes To Block Trump’s 50% Tariffs On Brazil

With the support of a handful of Republican senators led by outspoken constitutionalist Rand Paul, the Senate on Tuesday passed a measure to nullify the 50% tariffs that President Trump imposed on Brazil. The resolution does that by terminating Trump’s July 30 declaration of a national emergency — a declaration he used to supersede Congress’s tariff authority granted by the US Constitution. While it isn’t likely to clear the House, the measure spotlights growing bipartisan hostility to Trump’s worldwide tariff spree and its effects on US consumers and businesses.

The resolution passed by a 52 to 48 vote, with Republicans Susan Collins (ME), Lisa Murkowski (AK), Mitch McConnell  (KY) and Thom Tillis (NC) joining Kentucky’s Paul in helping to push it over the top. Two more votes on similar resolutions are expected in the next week, aimed at negating tariffs on Canada and a global tariff that hits 100 countries.

Coffee prices have surged 22%.

We’re taxing the world’s best coffee exporters:
🇧🇷 Brazil — 50%
🇨🇴 Colombia — 10%
🇨🇭 Switzerland — 39%

Economics 101: Tariffs don’t punish producers — they punish consumers. pic.twitter.com/BFOoA8pwwf

— Stephen Moore (@StephenMoore) October 21, 2025

Brazil is a notable case because the United States already had a trade surplus with the South American country — something that Tillis said figured heavily in his vote. “I’ve had a big concern with the Brazil one in particular, since we have a trade surplus with them. That’s the only one I’m considering,” he said. Trump imposed the sanctions after accusing Brazil of becoming “an international disgrace” over its prosecution of its former president and Trump ally Jair Bolsonaro, over an alleged conspiracy to undo the country’s 2022 election results (sound familar?). “It is a Witch Hunt that should end IMMEDIATELY!” Trump wrote in a letter to Brazilian President Lula da Silva a few weeks before imposing the sanctions. 

To unilaterally impose the tariffs without action by Congress, Trump is exploiting the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). That 1977 law delegates to the president various economic powers to address “any unusual and extraordinary threat” coming from a foreign power.  “The prosecution of a friend of the president — how is that an emergency that threatens the United States? It doesn’t,” Kaine said.

Striking a similar tone as he attacked Trump’s broader tariff blitz, Paul said: 

“Emergencies are like war, famine, tornado. Not liking someone’s tariffs is not an emergency. It’s an abuse of the emergency power, and it’s Congress abdicating their traditional role in taxes.”

A lot of people in Washington know tariffs are bad policy. They grumble behind closed doors but stay silent in public. Meanwhile, the farm economy hangs by a thread and inflation keeps eating away at families’ paychecks.

Sooner or later, this ends in economic pain for… pic.twitter.com/xeWMVK5o1b

— Senator Rand Paul (@SenRandPaul) October 24, 2025

McConnell pointed to economic downsides. “Tariffs make both building and buying in America more expensive. The economic harms of trade wars are not the exception to history, but the rule,” he said, while signaling his appetite to vote in favor of the similar resolutions making their way through the Senate pipeline. As with so many trade relationships, some imports of Brazilian products are raw materials and unfinished goods that US companies rely on for their own manufacturing.  

In 2024, the United States enjoyed a $7.4 billion trade surplus with Brazil, which is buffered from US tariffs to the extent that only 12% of Brazil’s exports go to the United States, vs 28% that are purchased by China. Exports represent about a fifth of Brazil’s GDP.