Providing for Congressional Disapproval Under Chapter 8 of Title United States Code, of the Rule Submitted By the Internal Revenue Service Relating to ``Gross Proceeds Reporting By Brokers That Regularly Provide Services Effectuating Digital Asset Sales''--

Floor Speech

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Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, my colleague from New Hampshire is being way too logical for some of what passes as trade debate here. And it is my hope that her excellent proposal will be back on this Senate floor sometime soon for unanimous consent to pass a very important bill protecting Americans from tax hikes on imported goods.

This is, as she has stated, a straightforward proposition. All it does is clarify that the President's emergency powers can't be used to put tariffs on the things Americans buy from other countries.

Now, Donald Trump calls himself a ``tariff man''--his quote, not mine. It is the only answer he seems to have to any problem under the sun. Instead of taking time to think through actual solutions, he is willing to use any authority he can find to slap tariffs on our trading partners.

Just today, he announced he was slapping 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico, which are two of our three largest trading partners and closest allies.

That alone is going to raise costs for Americans on gas, on cars, on fruits and vegetables, and many other products. It is also going to cost America jobs because Canada and Mexico have announced plans to retaliate against our exports.

That is the opposite of what Donald Trump pledged to the American people.

It is disturbing that Donald Trump is going rogue and using emergency powers to pursue his tariffs. The American people voted for lower--not higher--prices. Donald Trump campaigned on the promise that he would lower costs on day one of his Presidency. But just a month in, all Trump has managed to do is gut the agencies in charge of protecting consumers and going after predatory corporations, and he's landed us in trade wars that are going to drive up the cost of goods people use every day.

Whether it is to punish a country that he doesn't like or to settle scores with foreign leaders, the only answer Donald Trump has ever had is tariffs. And as the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, I have heard him play that card again and again, no matter how many times we have said: Look, tariffs should be one of the tools in the trade toolbox, but it shouldn't be the universal answer to everything.

Trump's approach is going to drive up prices and costs for American families, businesses, and farmers in the process.

He does it, in my view, because he and his billionaire friends aren't going to feel the impacts, and they don't care about the millions of Americans who will.

These higher costs essentially add up to a Trump Tax on everything from food to clothes and cars. And to those who voted for Donald Trump because they wanted lower prices and a fairer economy--it sure seems to me that these policies are a betrayal. The Shaheen bill that we are trying to pass today would rein in some of Donald Trump's worst impulses and clarify that the laws on the books were never meant to be a blank check for the President to abuse tariffs by using them as a punishment against any country that hurts his feelings.

A number of our Republican colleagues have supported the Shaheen proposal in the past because putting a check on the President's power to land us in trade wars should not be, as my colleague has said, partisan or controversial. It is Shaheen common sense. I want to thank her for an excellent bill, and for her leadership that I have watched from my vantage point on the Finance Committee.

And when we can get this bill back on the floor for unanimous consent, I hope it will be met with a resounding bipartisan showing of support, and I look forward to working with her until that day comes to be.

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